Supreme Court Allows Unusual Pennsylvania Law on Corporate Suits
The Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania law on Tuesday that requires corporations to consent to being sued in its courts — by anyone, for conduct anywhere — as a condition for doing business in the state.
Only Pennsylvania has such a law. But the ruling may pave the way for other states to enact similar ones, giving injured consumers, workers and others more choices of where to sue and subjecting corporations to suits in courts they may view as hostile to business.
The Supreme Court was split 5 to 4, with Justice Neil M. Gorsuch writing for the majority. In ruling against the corporation at the center of the case, Norfolk Southern, Justice Gorsuch rejected its argument that it was entitled “to a more favorable rule, one shielding it from suits even its employees must answer” under the Fourteenth Amendment.
In dissent, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Elena Kagan and Brett M. Kavanaugh, wrote that Pennsylvania’s law unfairly harmed other states’ rights because it imposed “a blanket claim of authority over controversies with no connection to the commonwealth.”
Source: The New York Times
