On March 25, 2021, the Supreme Court held in
Ford Motor
Company v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court that Montana
and Minnesota courts could exercise jurisdiction over the global
auto manufacturer for certain in-state vehicle accidents, even if
Ford sold, designed, and manufactured the allegedly defective
automobiles outside those forums.
1 The
Ford
decision sparked immediate questions about the direction of the
Court's personal jurisdiction jurisprudence, especially after a
decade of decisions restricting the exercise of jurisdiction over
out-of-state defendants. Does
Ford signal a return to the
days of expansive jurisdiction or was it simply a tried-and-true
application of existing principles? In other words, how worried