In Ford Motor Co. v Montana Eighth Judicial Circuit, Case No. 19-368, consolidated with Ford Motor Company v. Bandemer, Case No. 19-368, ____ U.S. ____ (March 25, 2021), the US Supreme Court affirmed two state supreme courts (Montana and Minnesota) which each held that Ford’s activities in their State had the needed connection to the plaintiff’s allegations that a defective Ford caused an in-state injury.
In each of the underlying cases, a state court exercised jurisdiction over Ford in a products-liability suit stemming from a car accident that injured a resident in the State. The first suit alleged that a 1996 Ford Explorer had malfunctioned, killing Markkaya Gullett near her home in Montana. In the second suit, Adam Bandemer claimed that he was injured in a collision on a Minnesota road involving a defective 1994 Crown Victoria. Ford moved to dismiss both suits for lack of personal jurisdiction.
Ford contended that it designed, assembled and sold the vehicles outside of Montana or Minnesota, and the company doesn’t have strong enough links to either state to justify it being sued there for state-based product defect, negligence and other claims. In other words, none of Ford’s business activities in Montana or Minnesota were the “proximate cause” of either accident, the automaker maintained. It argued that each state court had jurisdiction only if the company’s conduct in the State had given rise to the plaintiff’s claims. And that causal link existed, according to Ford, only if the company had designed, manufactured, or sold in the State the particular vehicle involved in the accident.
The Supreme Court held in 2017’s Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California that the due process clause requires that both the defendant “have purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum state” and that the plaintiff’s claim “arise out of or relate to” the defendant’s forum conduct. Ford maintained that the two suits in Montana and Minnesota didn’t clear that bar.
In an 8-0 opinion, the Supremes rejected Ford’s arguments. The Court held that the connection between plaintiffs’ product-liability claims arising from car accidents occurring in each plaintiff’s state of residence and Ford’s activities in those states was sufficient to support specific jurisdiction in the respective state courts, even though the automobiles involved in the accidents were manufactured and sold elsewhere. “When a company like Ford serves a market for a product in a State and that product causes injury in the State to one of its residents, the State’s courts may entertain the resulting suit,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote. Ford has “minimum contacts” with a state through conduct such as designing, building, servicing, advertising, marketing and selling products. And those in-state contacts with the state “give rise or relate to” a claim when they are identical to the out-of-state conduct that caused the injuries at issue in the lawsuit.