Stepping Back to Move Forward: Expanding Personal Jurisdiction by Reviving Old Practices

This Comment analyzes personal jurisdiction through the lens of Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court. Courts have, for years, been split on the degree of relatedness required between the claim and the defendant¿s contacts with a forum when analyzing specific jurisdiction. While the Supreme Court recently intervened in an attempt to clarify the issue and articulate a single test for relatedness, this Comment argues that the Court¿s entire personal jurisdiction framework is flawed. The main problem is an overemphasis on the defendant¿s contact with the forum. The result of this emphasis is that courts rarely, if ever, consider fairness as a dispositive factor in the analysis. And when courts try to expand the scope of jurisdiction under this contact-focused approach, the resulting opinions can be confusing or otherwise flawed