Pennoyer v. Neff

Pennoyer v. Neff
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October, 1877 Decided May 13, 1878
Full case name: Sylvester Pennoyer v. Marcus Neff Citations: 95 U.S. 714 Prior history: Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Oregon
Holding
No personal jurisdiction can be had over defendants who are physically absent from the state or have not consented to the court's jurisdiction.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Morrison Waite Associate Justices: Nathan Clifford, Noah Haynes Swayne, Samuel Freeman Miller, David Davis, Stephen Johnson Field, William Strong, Joseph Philo Bradley, Ward Hunt
Case opinions
Majority by: Field Dissent by: Hunt
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Amend. XIV

Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714 (1877)^[1], was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that there is no personal jurisdiction over a defendant unless the defendant is served while physically within the state.

Factual and procedural background

Pennoyer

Marcus Neff hired an attorney, John H. Mitchell, to help him with paperwork for a land grant. Mitchell later sued Neff in the Oregon state court system for unpaid bills; Neff was not to be found there, and Mitchell won the lawsuit by default. When Mitchell won the lawsuit in February 1866, Neff's land grant hadn't yet been conferred. Mitchell, possibly waiting for the arrival of the grant, waited until July 1866 to get a writ of attachment on the property. The court later ordered the land seized and sold in order to pay the judgment. Mitchell bought the land at that very auction and transferred the title to Sylvester Pennoyer. In 1874, Neff sued Pennoyer in federal court to recover his land. Neff won, and Pennoyer appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Issue

The Supreme Court was asked to determine whether a State court could order property owned by an out-of-state resident to be seized and sold when the out-of-state resident was not served actual notice.

Result

The Supreme Court found for Neff. In order for the trial court to have jurisdiction over the property, the property needed to be attached before entry of the judgment. It then has quasi in rem jurisdiction. Constructive notice is not enough to inform a person living in another state, except for cases affecting the personal status of the plaintiff (like divorce); or the case is in rem and the property sought is within the boundaries of the state. The law assumes that property is always in the possession of the owner, and the owner therefore knows what happens to his property; therefore, attachment of the property before judicial proceedings makes constructive notice sufficient.

Subsequent history

This case is no longer valid law in the United States where in personam jurisdiction is concerned. See below.

Later developments in the doctrine

The doctrines governing personal jurisdiction have spawned a great deal of discourse within the Supreme Court, with many cases fine-tuning the concept. Prominent among these are International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945) (holding that jurisdiction must be premised on minimum contacts, such that maintenance of the suit does not offend "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice"), and Burnham v. Superior Court, 495 U.S. 604 (1990) (holding that the intentional presence of an individual within a state was nevertheless sufficient contact to provide jurisdiction).

Place in law schools

In the United States, Pennoyer v. Neff is considered something of a milestone amongst law students and is viewed as the first true introduction to how strikingly complex legal issues can be.^{[citation needed]} At some law schools, it is the first case new students read in civil procedure class, and the professor may spend two or three weeks quizzing and challenging students on various aspects of the case, a traditional initiation into the Socratic method. The actual text of the case is notoriously obfuscative and verbose, even for a civil procedure case.^{[citation needed]} As a result, some law schools have done away with teaching the case all together.^{[citation needed]}

Further reading

• Borchers, Patrick J. The Death of the Constitutional Law of Personal Jurisdiction: From Pennoyer to Burnham and Back Again 24 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 19 (1990)
• Perdue, Wendy Collins Sin, Scandal, and Substantive Due Process: Personal Jurisdiction and Pennoyer Reconsidered, 62 Wash. Law Rev. 479 (1987)
• Tocklin, Adrian Pennoyer v. Neff: The Hidden Agenda of Stephen J. Field 28 Seton Hall Law Rev. 75 (1997)
• Friedenthal, Jack H. Civil Procedure Cases and Materials Ninth Edition (2005) pp 69-73

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court Cases
• John H. Mitchell
• Sylvester Pennoyer
• Marcus Neff

External links

• ^ 95 U.S. 714 (Text of the opinion on Findlaw.com)
• Full text of the decision & case resources from Justia & Northwestern-Oyez
• Tocklin, Adrian Pennoyer v. Neff: The Hidden Agenda of Stephen J. Field Seton Hall Law Review Volume 28 Book 1

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