Personal Jurisdiction - Statutory Authorization

Statutory Authorization

While the Pennoyer and later Shoe doctrines limit the maximum power of a sovereign state, courts must also have authorization to exercise the state's power; an individual state may choose to not grant its courts the full power that the state is Constitutionally permitted to exercise. Similarly, the jurisdiction of Federal courts (other than the Supreme Court) are statutorily-defined. Thus, a particular exercise of personal jurisdiction must not only be permitted by Constitutional doctrine, but be statutorily authorized as well. Under Pennoyer, personal jurisdiction was authorized by statutes authorizing service of process, but these methods of service often lacked because they required such service to be effected by officers of the state, such as sheriffs – an untenable method for defendants located outside of the state but still subject to jurisdiction due to their contacts with the state. Subsequent to the development of the Shoe Doctrine, states have enacted so-called long-arm statutes, by which courts in a state can serve process and thus exercise jurisdiction over a party located outside the state. The doctrine of International shoe applies only in cases where there is no presence in the forum state. For example, if A committed a tort in State X. He is sued by B and B serves him with process just before he leaves State X before the flight was took off, the service would be valid and State X would have jurisdiction over A. If A did not comply with the final judgement passed by the courts of State X, B could enforce that judgement in the state where A resides under the full faith and credit clause of the US Constitution. There was one case where a defendant was served while the airplane was in the air over the forum State, and the US Supreme Court held that this was valid service, since at law the territory of a state includes the airspace above the State. Grace v. MacArthur, 170 F. Supp. 442 (1959).