Residency Venue in Cases with Foreign Corporate Defendants

A few years ago, Congress passed the Federal Courts Jurisdiction and Venue Clarification Act of 2011, in part to resolve, as the title suggests, uncertainties concerning the old venue statute. The effort succeeded in various regards, but Congress may have unwittingly created a new problem in the course of correcting others. Specifically, it’s not clear how to determine residency venue under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(1) when at least one of the defendants is a foreign corporation.

The statute seems to provide two contradictory solutions: First, venue is appropriate in a district only if at least one defendant resides there and all defendants—including the foreign corporation—reside in the state in which the district is located. In this analysis, 1391(c)(2) decides residency questions for all corporate defendants such that a foreign corporation, like any other, is a resident of the given state only if it is subject to personal jurisdiction there.

Continue ReadingResidency Venue in Cases with Foreign Corporate Defendants