PHC-Minden, L.P. v. Kimberly-Clark Corp.

The United States Constitution prohibits a court from exercising jurisdiction over a party that lacks minimum contacts with the forum. Personal jurisdiction has been described as either specific — that is, based on contacts arising from the dispute at issue — or general, predicated on a party’s “continuous and systematic” contacts with the forum. Minimum-contacts analysis is easily muddled, however, as courts frequently import contacts relevant to one type of jurisdiction when deciding the other. Additionally, courts sometimes impute contacts of related entities to each other, when mere…