Atlanta partner Richard Beaulieu and Richmond associates Travis Gunn and Andrew Gann and penned a Nov. 10, 2020, Law360 article about how the U.S. Supreme Court with the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett might resolve the murky question of how internet contacts can be used to establish personal jurisdiction.
In their article, the authors examined the differing views on the use of internet contacts to establish personal jurisdiction adopted by lower courts and how the Supreme Court might resolve the splits in the lower courts.
Although the internet has been a feature of daily American life for 25 years, the Supreme Court has not yet addressed how the digital age defines personal jurisdiction doctrine. As technology and e-commerce have advanced, this “explosion of the intangible put a sudden new spin on the Supreme Court’s previously established focus on contacts with, rather than physical presence in, a forum state to assess specific jurisdiction” the authors wrote.