Presence
Presence is one of the oldest and most reliable grounds for personal jurisdiction, and the exam treats it as a clean win for the plaintiff when the facts line up.
2. Personal Jurisdiction: Presence
One of the most common grounds for exercising personal jurisdiction is physical presence within the jurisdiction.
- All states recognize this ground through governing statutes or regulations, and this ground satisfies constitutional requirements.
- An individual is “present” in the place where they reside and intend to remain indefinitely. This is known as the individual’s “domicile.”
- Corporations are “present” in both their place of incorporation and their principal place of business.
- An individual will be deemed “present” in a jurisdiction if they are served with process while within the jurisdiction, even if their time in the jurisdiction was brief or transitory.
- Personal jurisdiction based on presence is sufficient to support personal jurisdiction with respect to any type of claim (general jurisdiction). The claim itself need not be related to the jurisdiction in which the court sits if the defendant is present in that jurisdiction (as defined here).
Presence supports general jurisdiction, so a present defendant can be sued on any claim, even one unrelated to the forum. The whole job is figuring out when a defendant is present.
Presence is one of the oldest and most reliable grounds for personal jurisdiction, and the exam treats it as a clean win for the plaintiff when the facts line up. The headline: presence supports general jurisdiction. That means a court can hear any claim against a defendant who is present, even a claim that has nothing to do with the forum. The claim does not have to be related to the state. So the whole job is figuring out when a defendant is 'present.'
- 1Domicile: a person is present where they reside and intend to remain indefinitely. It takes both, the physical residence and the intent to stay; a vacation home you never mean to settle in is not your domicile.
- 2Service of process while the individual is physically within the jurisdiction. It does not matter how briefly the person was there. Served while changing planes, served while passing through on a road trip, served during a one-day visit, all of it counts. Brief or transitory presence at the moment of service is enough.
For a corporation, presence is in two places: the place of incorporation and the principal place of business. Both count, and either one gives general jurisdiction. Tie it together: presence, however established, gives general jurisdiction, so the relatedness of the claim never enters the analysis.
An option that demands the claim be connected to the state is testing whether you remember that presence is a general-jurisdiction ground.
"Present means any claim."
Presence is a general-jurisdiction ground, so the claim never has to relate to the forum.
For an individual, two routes in: domicile (reside and intend to remain indefinitely) or served while physically there, no matter how briefly (tag-served on a layover counts).
For a corporation, two homes: place of incorporation and principal place of business.
Trap to kill: any option that says the claim must arise in or relate to the state.
An accountant is domiciled in a northern state, where she has lived for years and means to stay. While briefly passing through a southern state for a single afternoon to change trains, she is personally handed the summons and complaint in a lawsuit about a contract she signed years ago in a third state entirely. She moves to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction in the southern state.
Suppose she was never served in the southern state and merely owns an unused cabin there that she visits once a year with no intent to settle. That is not domicile (no intent to remain indefinitely) and there is no in-state service, so presence is not established on those facts.
An option that denies jurisdiction because the claim arose elsewhere or is unrelated to the forum.
Presence supports general jurisdiction, so the claim need not relate to the state; the unrelated origin is true but irrelevant.An option that says a brief layover or short visit is too fleeting to count, or that demands a minimum stay before presence attaches.
An individual served while within the jurisdiction is present even if the time there was brief or transitory; domicile has no minimum-duration requirement.An option that misstates domicile as mere residence or mere intent, or limits a corporation to a single home.
Domicile is residence plus intent to remain indefinitely; a corporation is present in both its place of incorporation and its principal place of business.An option that treats owning property, or having a supplier or customer, in the state as a route to presence.
Presence routes are domicile, in-state service, and a corporation's two homes; property ownership is property-based jurisdiction, which is outside this ground.a stem that stresses how the defendant came to be in the state (a short layover, a brief visit, a long residence) or notes that the claim arose somewhere else.
The moment you see in-state service or a settled home, ask the presence questions: was the individual served while physically in the state (brief presence counts), or is this their domicile (reside plus intent to remain indefinitely), or is the defendant a corporation incorporated or headquartered there?
If presence is established by any of these routes, the court has general jurisdiction and the claim need not relate to the forum, so eliminate every option that demands relatedness or a longer stay.
A consultant who lives in a coastal state was traveling through an inland state for a single day to attend a wedding. While there, a process server personally handed her the summons and complaint in a lawsuit arising from a business deal she had carried out entirely in yet another state. The consultant argues that her few hours in the inland state were far too brief to support a suit there, especially one with no connection to that state.
Does the inland-state court have personal jurisdiction over the consultant?
A retired teacher owns a lakeside cabin in a mountain state that he visits for two weeks each summer. He has lived for thirty years in a different state, where he keeps his home, votes, and intends to stay for the rest of his life. He has never been served with process in the mountain state. A plaintiff sued the teacher in a mountain-state court, claiming that owning the cabin makes the teacher present there.
Is the teacher present in the mountain state for purposes of personal jurisdiction?
A company is incorporated in one state and runs its headquarters, where its officers direct the company's activities, in a second state. A supplier sued the company in a court of the second state over a dispute that arose from dealings in a third state. The company argues that because the claim has nothing to do with the second state, the court there cannot hear it.
Does the court in the second state have personal jurisdiction over the company?
A nurse moved to a new state, signed a long-term lease, registered to vote, and told friends she planned to settle there for good. A month later, before the events giving rise to a lawsuit, a plaintiff sued her in a court of that new state on a claim arising in her former state. The nurse was never personally served while inside any particular state; service was made by an authorized alternative method, and she concedes service was proper.
Is the new state's exercise of jurisdiction over the nurse supported by presence?
A musician domiciled in one state was personally handed the summons and complaint while standing in the terminal of an airport in another state during a ninety-minute layover. The suit concerns a recording contract she negotiated and signed in a third state. She did not leave the airport and boarded her connecting flight as planned.
Is the court in the layover state likely to have personal jurisdiction over the musician?