The doctrine of personal jurisdiction is in a precarious state. The Supreme Court’s most recent attempt to apply its “settled principles” of personal jurisdiction to the evolving world of complex litigation left the law anything but settled. Specifically, in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, the Court held that California courts could not constitutionally exercise personal jurisdiction over claims in a coordinated mass action that were not transactionally related to the state. The potential implications of BMS’s reasoning for class actions are profound: Applying BMS’s logic to absent class members’ claims would severely hinder plaintiffs’ abilities to sue on behalf of nationwide classes. An abundance of scholarship has since sought to divine whether BMS spells the end of nationwide class actions. The lower courts have divided on the question, with both the majority and the minority relying on simple definitions of absent class members as either parties or nonparties. This Note articulates an alternative to the formalistic are-they-parties-or-not inquiry and, instead, resolves the question by returning to personal jurisdiction’s first principles. It begins by tracing the evolution of personal jurisdiction doctrine back to its animating principles of sovereignty and due process. Applying them to the class action context, this Note concludes that adherence to the requirements for class certification inevitably allows courts to resolve absentee claims over which they would otherwise lack personal jurisdiction without running afoul of the sovereignty and due process principles that underlie personal jurisdiction doctrine.
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