Lebel v. Everglades Marina, Inc.

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

O’HERN, J.

In 1877, the Supreme Court subjected the concept of jurisdiction of the person to the measure of ordered liberty under the fourteenth amendment. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L.Ed. 565 (1877). Detached from the common law’s familiar method of reifying abstract concepts (in this area, equating the jurisdiction of a forum with its physical power over the body or the object — in personam or in rem jurisdiction), courts have struggled to define the contours of the due process of law that will sustain the exercise of personal jurisdiction. See…