Civil procedure is the law governing civil litigation in the courts. It prescribes the mechanisms by which parties obtain judicial determination of the rights and duties created by civil substantive law, such as contracts, torts, and constitutional law.

The first element of the rule defining the personal jurisdiction of the courts is the existence of a statute conferring on the courts power over the defendant. Some states, such as California, have authorized their state courts to exercise personal jurisdiction to the full extent permitted by the Constitution. Thus, any constitutional exercise of power is authorized by statute. In other states, however, the legislature has enacted narrower statutes that may provide the courts with less power than the Constitution would permit them to have.

The second element, that personal jurisdiction be consistent with the due process clause, was imposed by the Supreme Court in the well-known case of Pennoyer v. Neff.⁴ For the sake of brevity, only the limitations that the due process clause imposes on personal jurisdiction exercised by state (as opposed to federal) courts are discussed here.

As a result of the growing dissatisfaction with the restrictiveness of the traditional bases of jurisdiction, the Supreme Court created a new basis in International Shoe Co. v. State of Washington.⁷ In that case, the Court adopted a rule that a state has power over individuals who have “minimum contacts” with the territory such that the exercise of jurisdiction over them would not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice. The minimum contacts rule permitted courts to exercise jurisdiction over out-of-state motorists and corporations without having to resort to the legal fiction of implied consent or presence. Those legal fictions had allowed the courts to assert jurisdiction in cases where jurisdiction seemed unwarranted under the traditional bases of jurisdiction. The adoption of the minimum contacts rule represented an abandonment of the pretense and a concession that the law had in fact changed. In a series of subsequent decisions, the Supreme Court has defined two different types of power that the court may have over the defendant under International Shoe. One type of power, called general jurisdiction, permits the court to assert power over the defendant with respect to any claim that the plaintiff may allege. The other type of power, called specific jurisdiction, permits the court to assert power over the defendant only with respect to a claim related to the contacts that form the basis for the jurisdiction. Each of these two types of power is created by a separate rule.

General jurisdiction exists if the defendant’s contacts with the state are systematic and continuous.⁸ Thus, the factual predicate necessary to establish general jurisdiction has only one element: systematic and continuous contacts.

Specific jurisdiction exists if (1) the defendant has purposefully availed himself or herself of the benefits and protections of the laws of the state and (2) the exercise of jurisdiction would be reasonable under the circumstances. The factual predicate necessary to establish specific jurisdiction thus has two elements. Additional rules have further defined and limited each of these two elements.