Does the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment permit an Oklahoma court to exercise in personam jurisdiction over a New York automobile retailer and a New York regional wholesale distributor in a products-liability action when their only connection to Oklahoma is that a car sold in New York to New York residents was involved in an accident in Oklahoma?

Harry and Kay Robinson bought a new Audi from Seaway Volkswagen, Inc. (Seaway) in Massena, New York, in 1976. The following year, the Robinson family, New York residents, moved to Arizona. While passing through Oklahoma, another car struck their Audi in the rear, causing a fire that severely burned Kay Robinson and her two children.

The Robinsons sued in the District Court for Creek County, Oklahoma, alleging defective design and placement of the Audi's gas tank and fuel system. They named as defendants the manufacturer (Audi), the importer (Volkswagen of America), the regional distributor (World-Wide Volkswagen Corp.), and the retail dealer (Seaway). World-Wide and Seaway are New York corporations with business offices in New York. World-Wide distributes vehicles to retail dealers in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The record showed no business conducted by either petitioner in Oklahoma: no sales, services, advertising, agents for process, or shipments there. Respondents' counsel conceded that no automobile sold by World-Wide or Seaway had entered Oklahoma other than the Robinsons' vehicle. World-Wide and Seaway entered special appearances contesting jurisdiction.

The Robinsons filed suit in the District Court for Creek County, Oklahoma. World-Wide and Seaway entered special appearances claiming that Oklahoma's exercise of jurisdiction violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court rejected their claim and reaffirmed that ruling when it denied their motion for reconsideration. Petitioners then sought a writ of prohibition in the Supreme Court of Oklahoma to restrain the District Judge from exercising jurisdiction. That court denied the writ, holding that Oklahoma's long-arm statute, Okla. Stat., Tit. 12, § 1701.03(a)(4), authorized jurisdiction, and that it was reasonable to infer petitioners derived substantial revenue from automobiles used in Oklahoma. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the constitutional question and to resolve a conflict between the Oklahoma Supreme Court and the highest courts of at least four other States.

(White, J.)

No. The Due Process Clause does not permit Oklahoma to exercise in personam jurisdiction over World-Wide and Seaway. A state court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant only if the defendant has "minimum contacts" with the forum State such that maintaining the suit does not offend "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice." International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945). Minimum contacts serve two functions: they protect defendants against the burdens of litigating in a distant or inconvenient forum, and they ensure that States, as coequal sovereigns in a federal system, do not reach beyond the limits of their power. Even if the defendant would suffer little inconvenience and the forum State has a strong interest, due process may still divest the State of power to render a valid judgment. Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235 (1958).

Here, petitioners carry on no activity in Oklahoma, close no sales or perform no services there, solicit no business there, and do not serve or seek to serve the Oklahoma market directly or indirectly. Jurisdiction rests solely on the fortuity that a single car sold in New York to New York residents was involved in an accident in Oklahoma.

Foreseeability alone is not a sufficient basis for personal jurisdiction. Hanson and Kulko v. California Superior Court, 436 U.S. 84 (1978), rejected jurisdiction despite foreseeable consequences. The relevant foreseeability is whether the defendant's conduct and connection with the forum are such that it should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there. A defendant that purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum, including by delivering products into the stream of commerce with the expectation they will be purchased by forum consumers, may be sued there. But the unilateral activity of a consumer who brings the product into the forum cannot satisfy the contact requirement. Otherwise every seller of chattels would in effect appoint the chattel its agent for service of process.

Finally, revenues petitioners earn from the mere capability of their cars to be used in Oklahoma are too attenuated a contact to support jurisdiction. The judgment of the Oklahoma Supreme Court is reversed.

Dissent (Brennan, J.) The Court reads International Shoe too narrowly and focuses too tightly on defendant contacts while giving too little weight to the forum State's interest, the plaintiffs' interests, and the actual burden on the defendant. Oklahoma has a strong interest: the accident occurred there, the plaintiffs were hospitalized there, and key witnesses and evidence were there. Because an automobile is designed to be driven to distant States, dealers purposefully inject cars into interstate commerce and benefit from the national highway system and service networks, so petitioners have contacts with Oklahoma. There is no principled distinction between goods reaching a State through a chain of distribution and goods reaching it through the buyer's intended use. (The majority answered that an automobile is no different from any other chattel for jurisdictional purposes, and that a consumer's unilateral act of taking the car to the forum cannot supply the seller's contact.) The defendant-focused model of International Shoe is outdated given the nationalization of commerce and travel, and defendants should not hold an unjustified veto over appropriate forums absent a showing of real injury to a constitutionally protected interest.

Dissent (Marshall, J.) Jurisdiction rests not on a single accident but on petitioners' deliberate decision to join a nationwide network for marketing and servicing automobiles, whose utility derives from mobility. Petitioners knew a substantial portion of the cars they sell would travel out of State, and they derive economic advantage from the national service network. The majority wrongly characterizes the argument as one of foreseeability alone. Kulko is distinguishable because it involved personal domestic relations, not commercial activity from which the defendant derived economic benefit. A distributor and dealer who profit from a nationwide network can fairly expect to defend suits in distant States where their cars cause injury.

Dissent (Blackmun, J.) The automobile's peripatetic character is the critical factor. It is not unreasonable or unconstitutional to anticipate at the time of distribution and retail sale that an Audi would be driven to Oklahoma. Foreseeable use in another State is little different from foreseeable resale there, yet the Court treats the distinction as determinative. (The majority answered that an automobile is no different from any other chattel for jurisdictional purposes, and that the critical foreseeability is not the mere likelihood that a product reaches the forum.) Oklahoma provides safe roads, accident investigation, and aid to victims, all of which benefit automobile distributors and dealers. The judgment of the Oklahoma Supreme Court should be affirmed, and the Court's ruling will now require parsing every variant of motor vehicle fact situations.