WALDEN v. FIORE ET AL.
No. 12-574
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
February 25, 2014
571 U. S. ____ (2014)
THOMAS, J.
Arguеd November 4, 2013; CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
OCTOBER TERM, 2013
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
WALDEN v. FIORE ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-574. Argued November 4, 2013-Decided February 25, 2014
Petitioner Walden, a Georgia police officer working as a deputized Drug Enforcement Administration agent at a Georgia airport, searched respondents and seized a large amount оf cash. Respondents allege that after they returned to their Nevada residence, petitioner helped draft a false probable cause affidavit in support of the funds’ forfeiture and forwarded it to a United States Attorney‘s Office in Georgia. In the end, no forfeiture complaint was filed, and respondents’ funds were returned. Respondents filed a tort suit against petitioner in Federal District Court in Nevada. The District Court dismissed the suit, finding that the Georgia search and seizure did not establish a basis to exercise personal jurisdiction in Nevada. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding thаt the District Court could properly exercise jurisdiction because petitioner had submitted the false probable cause affidavit with the knowledge that it would affect persons with significant Nevada connections.
Held: The District Court lacked personal jurisdiction over petitioner. Pp. 5-14.
(a) The
(b) Petitioner lacks the “minimal contacts” with Nevada that are a prerequisite to the exercise of jurisdiction over him. No part of petitioner‘s course of conduct occurred in Nevada, and he formed no jurisdictionally relevant contacts with that forum. The Ninth Circuit reached its contrary conclusion by improperly shifting the analytical focus from petitioner‘s contacts with the forum to his contacts with respondents, obscuring the reality that none of petitioner‘s challenged conduct had anything to do with Nevada itself. Respondents emphasize that they suffered the “injury” caused by the delayed return of their funds while residing in Nevаda, but Calder made clear that mere injury to a forum resident is not a sufficient connection to the forum. The proper question is whether the defendant‘s conduct connects him to the forum in a meaningful way: Here, respondents’ claimed injury does not evince such a connection. The injury occurred in Nevada simply because that is where respondents chose to be when they desired to use the seized funds. Other possible contacts noted by the Ninth Circuit-that respondents’ Nevada attorney contacted petitioner in Georgia, that cash seized in Georgiа originated in Nevada, and that funds were returned to respondents in Nevada-are ultimately unavailing. Pp. 11-14.
688 F. 3d 558, reversed.
THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 12-574
ANTHONY WALDEN, PETITIONER v. GINA FIORE ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[February 25, 2014]
JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case asks us to decide whether a court in Nevada may exercise personаl jurisdiction over a defendant on the basis that he knew his allegedly tortious conduct in Georgia would delay the return of funds to plaintiffs with connections to Nevada. Because the defendant had no other contacts with Nevada, and because a plaintiff‘s contacts with the forum State cannot be “decisive in determining whether the defendant‘s due process rights are violated,” Rush v. Savchuk, 444 U. S. 320, 332 (1980), we hold that the court in Nevada may not exercise personal jurisdiction under these circumstances.
I
Petitioner Anthony Walden serves as a police officer for the сity of Covington, Georgia. In August 2006, petitioner was working at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport as a deputized agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). As part of a task force, petitioner conducted investigative stops and other law enforcement functions in support of the DEA‘s airport drug interdiction program.
On August 8, 2006, Transportation Security Admin-
When respondents arrived in Atlanta, petitioner and another DEA agent approached them at the departure gate for their flight to Las Vegas. In response to petitioner‘s questioning, Fiore explained that she and Gipson were professional gamblers. Respondents maintained that the cash they were carrying was their gambling “bank” and winnings. App. 15, 24. After using a drug-sniffing dog to perform a sniff test, petitioner seized the cash.1 Petitioner advised respondents that their funds would be returned if they later proved a legitimate source for the cash. Respondents then boarded their plane.
After respondents departed, petitioner moved the cash to a secure location and the mattеr was forwarded to DEA headquarters. The next day, petitioner received a phone call from respondents’ attorney in Nevada seeking return of the funds. On two occasions over the next month, petitioner also received documentation from the attorney regarding the legitimacy of the funds.
At some point after petitioner seized the cash, he helped draft an affidavit to show probable cause for forfeiture of
Respondents filed suit against petitioner in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada, seeking money damages under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971). Respondents alleged that petitioner violated their
The District Court granted petitioner‘s motion to dismiss. Relying on this Court‘s decision in Calder v. Jones, 465 U. S. 783 (1984), the court determined that petitioner‘s search of respondents and his seizure of the cash in Georgia did not establish a basis to exercise personal jurisdiction in Nevada. The court concluded that evеn if petitioner caused harm to respondents in Nevada while knowing they lived in Nevada, that fact alone did not confer jurisdiction. Because the court dismissed the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, it did not determine
On appeal, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. The Court of Appeals assumed the District Court had correctly determined that petitioner‘s search and seizure in Georgia could not support exercise of jurisdiction in Nevada. The court held, however, that the District Court cоuld properly exercise jurisdiction over “the false probable cause affidavit aspect of the case.” 688 F. 3d 558, 577 (2011). According to the Court of Appeals, petitioner “expressly aimed” his submission of the allegedly false affidavit at Nevada by submitting the affidavit with knowledge that it would affect persons with a “significant connection” to Nevada.3 Id., at 581. After determining that the delay in returning the funds to respondents caused them “foreseeable harm” in Nevada and that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over petitioner was otherwise reasonable, the сourt found the District Court‘s exercise of personal jurisdiction to be proper.4 Id., at 582, 585. The Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc, with eight judges, in two separate opinions, dissenting. Id., at 562, 568.
We granted certiorari to decide whether due process permits a Nevada court to exercise jurisdiction over petitioner. 568 U. S. ____ (2013). We hold that it does not and
II
A
“Federal courts ordinarily follow state law in determining the bounds of their jurisdiction over persons.” Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U. S. ____, ____ (2014) (slip op., at 6). This is because a federal district court‘s authority to assert personal jurisdiction in most cases is linked to service of procеss on a defendant “who is subject to the jurisdiction of a court of general jurisdiction in the state where the district court is located.”
B
1
The Due Process Clause of the
This case addresses the “minimum contacts” necessary to create specific jurisdiction.6 The inquiry whether a forum State may assert specific jurisdiction over a nonresident dеfendant “focuses on ‘the relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.‘” Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U. S. 770, 775 (1984) (quoting Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U. S. 186, 204 (1977)). For a State to exercise jurisdiction consistent with due process, the defendant‘s suit-related conduct must create a substantial connection with the forum State. Two related aspects of this necessary relationship are relevant in this case.
First, the relationship must arise out of contacts that the “defendant himself” creates with the forum State. Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U. S. 462, 475 (1985). Due process limits on the State‘s adjudicative authority principally protect the liberty of the nonresident defеndant-not the convenience of plaintiffs or third parties. See World-Wide Volkswagen Corp., supra, at 291-292. We have consistently rejected attempts to satisfy the defendant-focused “minimum contacts” inquiry by demonstrating contacts between the plaintiff (or third parties) and the forum State. See Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S. A. v. Hall, 466 U. S. 408, 417 (1984) (“[The] unilateral
Second, our “minimum contacts” analysis looks to the defendant‘s contacts with the forum State itself, not the defendant‘s contacts with persons who reside there. See, e.g., International Shoe, supra, at 319 (Due process “does not contemplate that a state may make binding a judgment in personam against an individual... with which the state has no contacts, ties, or relations“); Hanson, supra, at 251 (“However minimal the burden of defending in a foreign tribunal, a defendant may not be called upon to do so unless he has had the ‘minimal contacts’ with that State that are a prerequisite to its exercise of power over him“). Accordingly, we have upheld the assertion of jurisdiction over defendants who have purposefully “reach[ed] out beyond” their State and into another by, for example, entering a contractual relationship that “envisioned continuing and wide-reaching contacts” in the forum State, Burger King, supra, at 479-480, or by circulating maga-
But the plaintiff cannot be the only link between the defendant and the forum. Rather, it is the defendant‘s conduct that must form the necessary connection with the forum State that is the basis for its jurisdiction over him. See Burger King, supra, at 478 (“If the question is whether an individual‘s contract with an out-of-state party alone can automatically establish sufficient minimum contacts in the other party‘s home forum, we believe the answer clearly is that it cannot“); Kulko v. Superior Court of Cal., City and County of San Francisco, 436 U. S. 84, 93 (1978) (declining to “find personal jurisdiction in a State... merely because [the plaintiff in a child support action] was residing there“). To be sure, a defendant‘s contacts with the forum State may be intertwined with his transactions or interactions with the plaintiff or other parties. But a defendant‘s relationship with a plaintiff or third party, standing alone, is an insufficient basis for jurisdiction. See Rush, supra, at 332 (“Naturally, the parties’ relationships with each other may be significant in evaluating their ties to the forum. The requirements of International Shoe, however, must be met as to each defendant over whom a state court exercises jurisdiction“). Due process requires that a defendant be haled into court in a forum State based on his own affiliation with the State, not based on the “random, fortuitous, or attenuated” contacts he makes by interacting with other persons affiliated with the State. Burger King, 471 U. S., at 475 (internal quotation marks omitted).
These same principles apply when intentional torts are involved. In that context, it is likewise insufficient to rely on a defendant‘s “random, fortuitous, or attenuated contacts” or on the “unilateral activity” of a plaintiff. Ibid. (same). A forum State‘s exercise of jurisdiction over an out-of-state intentional tortfeasor must be based on intentional conduct by the defendant that creates the necessary contacts with the forum.
Calder v. Jones, 465 U. S. 783, illustrates the application of these principles. In Calder, a California actress brought a libel suit in California state court against a reporter and an editor, both of whom worked for the National Enquirer at its headquarters in Florida. The plaintiff‘s libel claims were based on an article written and edited by the defendants in Florida for publication in the National Enquirer, a national weekly newspaper with a California circulation of roughly 600,000.
We held that California‘s assertion of jurisdiction over the defendants was consistent with due process. Although we recognized that the defendants’ activities “focus[ed]” on the plaintiff, our jurisdictional inquiry “focuse[d] on ‘the relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.‘” Id., at 788 (quoting Shaffer, 433 U. S., at 204). Specifically, we examined the various contacts the defendants had created with California (and not just with the plaintiff) by writing the allegedly libelous story.
We found those forum contacts to be ample: The defendants relied on phone calls to “California sourcеs” for the information in their article; they wrote the story about the plaintiff‘s activities in California; they caused reputational injury in California by writing an allegedly libelous article that was widely circulated in the State; and the “brunt” of that injury was suffered by the plaintiff in that State. 465 U. S., at 788-789. “In sum, California [wa]s the focal point both of the story and of the harm suffered.”
The crux of Calder was that the reputation-based “effects” of the alleged libel connected the defendants to California, not just to the plaintiff. The strength of that connection was largely a function of the nature of the libel tort. However scandalous a newspaper article might be, it can lead to a loss of reputation only if communicated to (and read and understood by) third persons. See Restatement (Second) of Torts §577, Comment b (1976); see also ibid. (“[R]eputation is the estimation in which one‘s character is held by his neighbors or associates“). Accordingly, the reputational injury caused by the defendants’ story would not have occurred but for the fact that the defendants wrote an article for publication in California that was read by a large number of California citizens. Indeed, because publication to third persons is a necessary element of libel, see id., §558, the defendants’ intentional tort actually occurred in California. Keeton, 465 U. S., at 777 (“The tort of libel is generally held to occur wherever the offending material is circulated“). In this way, the “effects” caused by the defendants’ article-i.e., the injury to the plaintiff‘s reputation in the estimation of the California public-connected the defendants’ conduct to Californiа, not just to a plaintiff who lived there. That connection, combined with the various facts that gave the article a California focus, sufficed to authorize the California court‘s exercise of jurisdiction.7
Applying the foregoing principles, we conclude that petitioner lacks the “minimal contacts” with Nevada that are a prerequisite to the exercise of jurisdiction over him. Hanson, 357 U. S., at 251. It is undisputed that no part of petitioner‘s course of conduct occurred in Nevada. Petitioner approached, questioned, and searched respondеnts, and seized the cash at issue, in the Atlanta airport. It is alleged that petitioner later helped draft a “false probable cause affidavit” in Georgia and forwarded that affidavit to a United States Attorney‘s Office in Georgia to support a potential action for forfeiture of the seized funds. 688 F. 3d, at 563. Petitioner never traveled to, conducted activities within, contacted anyone in, or sent anything or anyone to Nevada. In short, when viewed through the proper lens-whether the defendant‘s actions connect him to the forum-petitioner formed no jurisdictionally relevant contacts with Nevada.
The Court of Appeals reached a contrary conclusion by shifting the analytical focus from petitioner‘s contacts with the forum to his contacts with respondents. See Rush, 444 U. S., at 332. Rather than assessing petitioner‘s own contacts with Nevada, the Court of Appeals looked to petitioner‘s knowledge of respondents’ “strong forum connections.” 688 F. 3d, at 577-579, 581. In the court‘s view, that knowledge, combined with its conclusion that respondents suffered foreseeable harm in Nevada, satisfied the “minimum contacts” inquiry. Id., at 582.
This approach to the “minimum contacts” analysis
California, and that thе article would “have a potentially devastating impact” there. Id., at 789-790.
Relying on Calder, respondents emphasize that they suffered the “injury” caused by petitioner‘s allegedly tortious conduct (i.e., the delayed return of their gambling funds) while they were residing in the forum. Brief for Respondents 14. This emphasis is likewise misplaced. As previously noted, Calder made clear that mere injury to a forum resident is not a sufficient connection to the forum. Regardless of where a plaintiff lives or works, an injury is jurisdictionally relevant only insofar as it shows that the defendant has formed a contact with the forum State. Thе proper question is not where the plaintiff experienced a particular injury or effect but whether the defendant‘s conduct connects him to the forum in a meaningful way.
Respondents’ claimed injury does not evince a connection between petitioner and Nevada. Even if we consider the continuation of the seizure in Georgia to be a distinct injury, it is not the sort of effect that is tethered to Nevada in any meaningful way. Respondents (and only respondents) lacked access to their funds in Nevada not because anything independently occurred there, but because Nevada is where respondents chose to be at a time when they desired to use the funds seized by petitioner. Respondents would have experienced this same lack of access in California, Mississippi, or wherever else they might have traveled and found themselves wanting more money than
The Court of Appeals pointed to other possible contacts with Nevada, each ultimately unavailing. Respondents’ Nevada attorney contacted petitioner in Georgia, but that is precisely the sort of “unilateral activity” of a third party that “cannot satisfy the requirement of contact with the forum State.” Hanson, 357 U. S., at 253. Respondents allege that some of the cash seized in Georgia “originated” in Nevada, but that attenuated connection was not created by petitioner, and the cash was in Georgia, not Nevada, when petitioner seized it. Finally, the funds were eventually returned to respondents in Nevada, but petitioner had nothing to do with that return (indeed, it seems likely that it was respondents’ unilateral decision to have their funds sent to Nevada).
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Well-established principles of personal jurisdiction are sufficient to decide this case. The proper focus of the
It is so ordered.