Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in  Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco County (“BMS”), holding the Fourteenth Amendment prevents a state court from adjudicating non-resident plaintiffs’ state-law claims. Since then, various federal courts have considered whether that ruling extends to prevent a federal court from adjudicating claims brought under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) by individuals who live and work outside the court’s jurisdiction—and courts have come to vastly different conclusions.

On August 17, 2021, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals became the first federal appellate court to hold that where nonresident plaintiffs opt into a putative collective action under the FLSA, a court may not exercise specific personal jurisdiction over claims unrelated to the defendant’s conduct in the forum state.  Canaday v. The Anthem Companies, Inc. (Case No. 20-5947) (6th Cir).  The next day, the Eighth Circuit reached the same conclusion in a separate case.  Vallone v. CJS Solutions Group, LLC, d/b/a HCI Group (Case No. 20-2874) (8th Cir).

We previously blogged about how ...

As detailed in our previous article on this issue, in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco Cty., 137 S. Ct. 1773 (June 17, 2017), the U.S. Supreme Court established limitations on personal jurisdiction over non-resident defendants in “mass actions,” effectively supporting the view that plaintiffs cannot simply “forum shop” in large class and collective actions and instead must sue where the corporate defendant has significant contacts for purposes of general jurisdiction or limit the class definition to residents of the state where the lawsuit is filed.  Notably, the Supreme Court’s decision was limited to personal jurisdiction issues in state courts, which has led to a split on the question of whether, and to what extent, the Supreme Court’s analysis applies to class and collective actions pending in federal court.