Kulko v. Superior Court

     The Kulkos were married and living in New York. They divorced, and the wife moved to California. The father was given custody of the two children - a son and a daughter. The daughter asked if she could move to California and live with her mother. The father consented. The son then went for a visit to his mother and, without his father's consent, chose to stay in California. The mother then moved in California court for full custody of the children and for a higher level of support payments. The father - appearing specially - filed a motion to quash the summons. When the Superior Court refused to quash the summons, he filed for a writ of mandamus, which was denied in the California courts.

Mr. Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the Court.

     The issue before us is whether, in this action for child support, the California state courts may exercise in personam jurisdiction over a nonresident, nondomiciliary parent of minor children domiciled within the State. For reasons set forth below, we hold that the exercise of such jurisdiction would violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

     The “purposeful act” that the California Supreme Court believed did warrant the exercise of personal jurisdiction over appellant in California was his “actively and fully consent [ing] to Lisa living in California for the school year . . . and . . . sen [ding] her to California for that purpose.” [ … ]We cannot accept the proposition that appellant’s acquiescence in Lisa's desire to live with her mother conferred jurisdiction over appellant in the California courts in this action. A father who agrees, in the interests of family harmony and his children’s preferences, to allow them to spend more time in California than was required under a separation agreement can hardly be said to have “purposefully availed himself” of the “benefits and protections” of California’s laws.

     Nor can we agree with the assertion of the court below that the exercise of in personam jurisdiction here was warranted by the financial benefit appellant derived from his daughter’s presence in California for nine months of the year. This argument rests on the premise that, while appellant’s liability for support payments remained unchanged, his yearly expenses for supporting the child in New York decreased. But this circumstance, even if true, does not support California’s assertion of jurisdiction here. Any diminution in appellant’s household costs resulted, not from the child’s presence in California, but rather from her absence from appellant’s home.

     In light of our conclusion that appellant did not purposefully derive benefit from any activities relating to the State of California, it is apparent that the California Supreme Court’s reliance on appellant’s having caused an “effect” in California was misplaced. This “effects” test is derived from the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 37 (1971), which provides:

A state has power to exercise .judicial jurisdiction over an individual who causes effects in the state by an act done elsewhere with respect to any cause of action arising from these effects unless the nature of the effects and of the individual’s relationship to the state make the exercise of such jurisdiction unreasonable.

     While this provision is not binding on this Court, it does not in any event support the decision below. As is apparent from the examples accompanying § 37 in the Restatement, this section was intended to reach wrongful activity outside of the State causing injury within the State, see, e. g., Comment a, p. 157 (shooting bullet from one State' into another), or commercial activity affecting state residents, ibid. Even in such situations, moreover, the Restatement recognizes that there might be circumstances that would render “unreasonable” the assertion of jurisdiction over the nonresident defendant.

     The circumstances in this case clearly render “unreasonable” California’s assertion of personal jurisdiction. There is no claim that appellant has visited physical injury on either property or persons within the State of California. The cause of action herein asserted arises, not from the defendant’s commercial transactions in interstate commerce, but rather from his personal, domestic relations. It thus cannot be said that appellant has sought a commercial benefit from solicitation of business from a resident of California that could reasonably render him liable to suit in state court; appellant’s activities cannot fairly be analogized to an insurer’s sending an insurance contract and premium notices into the State to an insured resident of the State.

     Finally, basic considerations of fairness point decisively in favor of appellant’s State of domicile as the proper forum for adjudication of this case, whatever the merits of appellee’s underlying claim. It is appellant who has remained in the State of the marital domicile, whereas it is appellee who has moved across the continent. Appellant has at all times resided in New York State, and, until the separation and appellee’s move to California, his entire family resided there as well. As noted above, appellant did no more than acquiesce in the stated preference of one of his children to live with her mother in California. This single act is surely not one that a reasonable parent would expect to result in the substantial financial burden and personal strain of litigating a child-support suit in a forum 3,000 miles away.