Mallory v. Norfolk Southern R. Co
The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that Pennsylvania can require out-of-state corporations to consent to lawsuits on any claim in its courts as a condition of registering to do business there, reviving a 1917 precedent the Pennsylvania courts had thought was dead.
The decision could significantly expand where injured workers, accident victims, and other plaintiffs can sue large corporations — any state that passes a similar registration law could gain broad authority to host those cases, even when neither the plaintiff nor the events at issue have any connection to that state.
How it got here: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the registration-consent law violated the Due Process Clause; the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case to resolve a split between Pennsylvania's and Georgia's high courts.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Robert Mallory worked for Norfolk Southern as a freight-car mechanic in Ohio and Virginia for nearly 20 years. After leaving the company, he was diagnosed with cancer he attributed to asbestos and chemical exposure on the job. He sued Norfolk Southern in Pennsylvania state court — even though he lived in Virginia and his alleged exposures occurred in Ohio and Virginia — because Norfolk Southern had registered to do business in Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania law requires registered companies to submit to its courts on any lawsuit whatsoever.
The question before the Court
Can a state require an out-of-state company to agree to be sued there on any claim at all, simply as a condition of registering to do business in that state?
The Court's answer
Yes — Pennsylvania can require out-of-state companies that register to do business there to consent to being sued in its courts on any claim, and that consent does not violate the Due Process Clause. The Court held this question was settled more than a century ago by Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Co. v. Gold Issue Mining (1917), which upheld a nearly identical Missouri registration-consent law. Norfolk Southern had registered in Pennsylvania in 1998 and operated extensively there for over two decades, knowing that registration meant agreeing to general jurisdiction.
The Court rejected Norfolk Southern's argument that International Shoe Co. v. Washington (1945) — the landmark ruling establishing that states can assert jurisdiction over companies based on their in-state business contacts, even without consent — had implicitly overruled Pennsylvania Fire. International Shoe, the Court explained, added a new, additional route to jurisdiction over corporations that had not consented to suit; it left untouched the older rule that voluntary consent through registration is its own valid and constitutionally permissible basis for a court's authority.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Workers and other people harmed by large corporations gain a potentially powerful new tool: if the company is registered to do business in a plaintiff-friendly state, that state may be able to host the lawsuit regardless of where the injury happened or where the company is headquartered. Companies doing business across many states face significantly expanded legal exposure depending on how many states adopt similar registration laws.
What changes now
The case goes back to Pennsylvania's courts, where Mallory's lawsuit can proceed — but Norfolk Southern may still raise a dormant Commerce Clause challenge, arguing that the registration-consent scheme improperly burdens interstate commerce. Justice Alito's concurrence, which provided the fifth vote for the judgment, expressed serious skepticism about whether Pennsylvania's law would survive that challenge. Other states could adopt similar registration laws in response to this ruling, though each would face potential Commerce Clause scrutiny.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly left open whether Pennsylvania's registration-consent law violates the dormant Commerce Clause — a separate constitutional argument Norfolk Southern can still raise on remand, and one that could still invalidate the scheme. The ruling also does not address what other types of registration arrangements, with different statutory terms, would or would not establish valid consent to jurisdiction.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson agreed with the outcome and joined the full Gorsuch opinion but wrote separately to emphasize that personal jurisdiction is an individual, waivable right under Insurance Corp. of Ireland v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (1982). Because Norfolk Southern voluntarily chose to register in Pennsylvania despite knowing the jurisdictional consequences, it waived its right to object — just as defendants in other areas of law can waive individual rights and be held to that choice. The general-jurisdiction precedents of Daimler and Goodyear are simply beside the point once a defendant has waived the protections those cases provide.
Concurrence in part — Justice Alito
Justice Alito agreed that Pennsylvania Fire controls and that the Due Process Clause is not violated here, but he joined only Parts I and III-B of the lead opinion and wrote separately to raise an unresolved concern. He argued that Pennsylvania's registration scheme — requiring an out-of-state company to defend any lawsuit anywhere, even with no connection to Pennsylvania, in order to access its market — may violate the dormant Commerce Clause, the constitutional limit on state laws that unduly burden interstate commerce. Because that challenge was not addressed below and is not before the Court, it remains available on remand, and Justice Alito signaled he views it as a strong argument.
Dissent — Justice Barrett
Justice Barrett, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Kagan and Kavanaugh, argued that the majority's consent theory effectively guts the Court's decisions in Daimler and Goodyear, which limit where corporations can be sued on unrelated claims. She contended that International Shoe swept away the old legal fiction of implied corporate consent through registration, that Pennsylvania Fire is no longer good law after that decision, and that even if Pennsylvania Fire remained valid, it involved an express power of attorney — not the silent registration paperwork Norfolk Southern filed. Any state, she warned, can now manufacture 'consent' to general jurisdiction simply by relabeling its long-arm statute.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The threshold legal question was whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids a state from conditioning a company's right to do business there on the company's agreement to be sued in that state on any claim, no matter where the events at issue occurred. The Court found this question was already resolved by a 1917 precedent.
- In Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Co. v. Gold Issue Mining & Milling Co. (1917), a unanimous Court upheld a Missouri law requiring out-of-state insurance companies to file a consent-to-jurisdiction agreement in order to obtain a business license, even though the lawsuit in that case had no connection to Missouri. The structural facts here were nearly identical: Norfolk Southern registered in Pennsylvania in 1998 knowing that state law expressly made registration a sufficient basis for Pennsylvania courts to hear any lawsuit against it.
- Norfolk Southern argued that International Shoe Co. v. Washington (1945) — which established that courts may assert jurisdiction over a non-consenting corporation based on the 'quality and nature' of its in-state activities — had implicitly overruled Pennsylvania Fire. The Court disagreed: International Shoe staked out an additional, independent road to jurisdiction for corporations that had not consented to suit; it did not eliminate the preexisting, consent-based road that Pennsylvania Fire had approved.
- The Court stressed a basic rule of judicial hierarchy: when a Supreme Court precedent 'directly controls' a case, lower courts must follow it even if they believe it is in tension with later decisions — only the Supreme Court itself can overrule its own precedents. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court had improperly declared Pennsylvania Fire implicitly overruled without that authority.
- The Court also rejected Norfolk Southern's fairness argument — that being sued in Pennsylvania was unjust when neither the plaintiff nor the injury had any connection to the state. A company that spent over 20 years operating extensively in Pennsylvania and voluntarily maintaining its registration there, with clear notice of the jurisdictional consequences, could not plausibly claim the arrangement was an unfair surprise.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Pennsylvania Fire Ins. Co. of Philadelphia v. Gold Issue Mining & Milling Co. (243 U.S. 93)
The Court held this 1917 ruling directly controls and has not been overruled, requiring a ruling for Mallory.
Distinguishes International Shoe Co. v. Washington (326 U.S. 310)
The Court clarified that International Shoe governs only non-consenting corporations and did not displace consent-based jurisdiction.