Do the 5th and 14th Amendments Impose Equivalent Due Process Limits on Court Jurisdiction?
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendent imposes limits on the scope of personal jurisidiction that may be asserted by state courts. As the Fifth Amendment also contains a Due Process Clause, and imposes due process obligations on the federal government, does that mean that federal courts are subject to equivalent limits on personal jurisdiction? Perhaps, but perhaps not.
In a fascinating concurrence in Lewis v. Mutond, issued yesterday, Judge Neomi Rao of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit notes there are reasons to doubt whether the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendment Due Process Clauses impose equivalent limitations (particularly, as here, in cases involving foreign defendants). Of note, she cites the scholarship of co-conspirator Stephen Sachs exteensively.
While the question was not squarely presented in this case, Judge Rao suggests that the D.C. Circuit needs to consider this question anew when it is properly put before her court.
Judge Rao’ concurrence is below the fold.
Under circuit precedent, we have no personal jurisdiction over Darryl Lewis’s claims because he has not plausibly alleged the required minimum contacts with the United States as a whole. I concur in the panel opinion but write separately to note that there are reasons to reconsider whether the personal jurisdiction limits required by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment are identical to those of the Fourteenth.
Shortly after this circuit held the same personal jurisdiction standards apply under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, Livnat v. Palestinian Authority, 851 F.3d 45, 54 (D.C. Cir. 2017), the Supreme Court declared it was an “open” question whether the Fifth Amendment imposes the same due process limits as the Fourteenth, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Ct. of Cal., 582 U.S. 255, 137 S. Ct. 1773, 1783–84, 198 L.Ed.2d 395 (2017). While the parties do not raise this issue, in an appropriate case we should reassess what limits the Fifth Amendment places on the federal courts’ exercise of personal jurisdiction over foreign defendants.
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Lewis sued two Congolese officials in federal district court, alleging they imprisoned and tortured him. Lewis’s caus
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