Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
This
case asks us to decide whether a court in Nevada may exercise personal
jurisdiction over a defendant on the basis that he knew his allegedly
tortious conduct in Georgia would delay the return of funds to
plaintiffs with connections to Nevada. Because the defendant had no
other contacts with Nevada, and because a plaintiff’s con-tacts with
the forum State cannot be “decisive in determining whether the
defendant’s due process rights are violated,”Rush v. Savchuk, 444 U. S.
320, 332 (1980) , we hold that the court in Nevada may not exercise
personal jurisdiction under these circumstances.
I
Petitioner
Anthony Walden serves as a police officer for the city of Covington,
Georgia. In August 2006, petitioner was working at the Atlanta
Hartsfield-Jackson Airport as a deputized agent of the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA). As part of a task force, petitioner conducted
investigative stops and other law enforcement functions in support of
the DEA’s airport drug interdiction program.
On August 8, 2006,
Transportation Security Administration agents searched respondents Gina
Fiore and Keith Gipson and their carry-on bags at the San Juan airport
in Puerto Rico. They found almost $97,000 in cash. Fiore explained to
DEA agents in San Juan that she and Gipson had been gambling at a
casino known as the El San Juan, and that they had residences in both
California and Nevada (though they provided only California
identification). After respondents were cleared for departure, a law
enforcement official at the San Juan airport notified petitioner’s task
force in Atlanta that respondents had boarded a plane for Atlanta,
where they planned to catch a connecting flight to Las Vegas, Nevada.
When
respondents arrived in Atlanta, petitioner and another DEA agent
approached them at the departure gate for their flight to Las Vegas. In
response to petitioner’s questioning, Fiore explained that she and
Gipson were professional gamblers. Respondents maintained that the cash
they were carrying was their gambling “ ‘bank’ ” and winnings. App. 15,
24. After using a drug-sniffing dog to perform a sniff test, petitioner
seized the cash. 1 Petitioner advised respondents that their funds
would be returned if they later proved a legitimate source for the
cash. Respondents then boarded their plane.
After respondents
departed, petitioner moved the cash to a secure location and the matter
was forwarded to DEA headquarters. The next day, petitioner received a
phone call from respondents’ attorney in Nevada seeking return of the
funds. On two occasions over the next month, petitioner also received
documentation from the attorney regarding the legitimacy of the funds.
At
some point after petitioner seized the cash, he helped draft an
affidavit to show probable cause for forfeiture of the funds and
forwarded that affidavit to a United States Attorney’s Office in
Georgia. 2 According to respondents, the affidavit was false and
misleading because petitioner misrepresented the encounter at the
airport and omitted exculpatory information regarding the lack of drug
evidence and the legitimate source of the funds. In the end, no
forfeiture complaint was filed, and the DEA returned the funds to
respondents in March 2007.
Respondents filed suit against
petitioner in the United States District Court for the District of
Nevada, seeking money damages under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed.
Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971) . Respondents alleged that
petitioner violated their Fourth Amendment rights by (1) seizing the
cash without probable cause; (2) keeping the money after concluding it
did not come from drug-related activity; (3) drafting and forwarding a
probable cause affidavit to support a forfeiture action while knowing
the affidavit contained false statements; (4) willfully seeking
forfeiture while withholding exculpatory informa-tion; and (5)
withholding that exculpatory information from the United States
Attorney’s Office.
The District Court granted petitioner’s
motion to dismiss. Relying on this Court’s decision in Calder v. Jones,
465 U. S. 783 (1984) , the court determined that petitioner’s search of
respondents and his seizure of the cash in Georgia did not establish a
basis to exercise personal jurisdiction in Nevada. The court concluded
that even if petitioner caused harm to respondents in Nevada while
knowing they lived in Nevada, that fact alone did not confer
jurisdiction. Because the court dismissed the complaint for lack of
personal jurisdiction, it did not determine whether venue was proper.
On
appeal, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit reversed. The Court of Appeals assumed the District Court
had correctly determined that petitioner’s search and seizure in
Georgia could not support exercise of jurisdiction in Nevada. The court
held, however, that the District Court could properly exercise
jurisdiction over “the false probable cause affidavit aspect of the
case.” 688 F. 3d 558, 577 (2011). According to the Court of Appeals,
petitioner “expressly aimed” his submission of the allegedly false
affidavit at Nevada by submitting the affidavit with knowledge that it
would affect persons with a “significant connection” to Nevada. 3 Id.,
at 581. After determining that the delay in returning the funds to
respondents caused them “foreseeable harm” in Nevada and that the
exercise of personal jurisdiction over petitioner was otherwise
reasonable, the court found the District Court’s exercise of personal
jurisdiction to be proper. 4 Id., at 582, 585. The Ninth Circuit denied
rehearing en banc, with eight judges, in two separate opinions,
dissenting. Id., at 562, 568.
We granted certiorari to decide
whether due process permits a Nevada court to exercise jurisdiction
over petitioner. 568 U. S. ___ (2013). We hold that it does not and
therefore reverse. 5
II
A
“Federal courts
ordinarily follow state law in determining the bounds of their
jurisdiction over persons.” Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U. S. ___, ___
(2014) (slip op., at 6). This is because a federal district court’s
authority to assert personal jurisdiction in most cases is linked to
service of process on a defendant “who is subject to the jurisdiction
of a court of general jurisdiction in the state where the district
court is located.” Fed. Rule of Civ. Proc. 4(k)(1)(A). Here, Nevada has
authorized its courts to exercise jurisdiction over persons “on any
basis not inconsistent with . . . the Constitution of the United
States.” Nev. Rev. Stat. §14.065 (2011). Thus, in order to determine
whetherthe Federal District Court in this case was authorized to
exercise jurisdiction over petitioner, we ask whether the exercise of
jurisdiction “comports with the limits imposed by federal due process”
on the State of Nevada. Daimler, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 6).
B
1
The
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment constrains a State’s
authority to bind a nonresidentdefendant to a judgment of its courts.
World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U. S. 286, 291 (1980) .
Although a nonresident’s physical presence within the territorial
jurisdiction of the court is not required, the nonresident generally
must have “certain minimum contacts . . . such that the maintenance of
the suit does not offend ‘traditional notions of fair play and
substantial justice.’ ” International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S.
310, 316 (1945) (quoting Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457, 463 (1940) ).
This
case addresses the “minimum contacts” necessary to create specific
jurisdiction. 6 The inquiry whether a forum State may assert specific
jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant “focuses on ‘the relationship
among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.’ ” Keeton v.
Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U. S. 770, 775 (1984) (quoting Shaffer v.
Heitner, 433 U. S. 186, 204 (1977) ). For a State to exercise
jurisdiction consistent with due process, the defendant’s suit-related
conduct must create a substantial connection with the forum State. Two
related aspects of this necessary relationship are relevant in this
case.
First, the relationship must arise out of contacts that
the “defendant himself ” creates with the forum State. Burger King
Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U. S. 462, 475 (1985) . Due process limits on
the State’s adjudicative authority principally protect the liberty of
the nonresident defendant—not the convenience of plaintiffs or third
parties. See World-Wide Volkswagen Corp., supra, at 291–292. We have
consistently rejected attempts to satisfy the defendant-focused
“minimum contacts” inquiry by demonstrating contacts between the
plaintiff (or third parties) and the forum State. See Helicopteros
Nacionales de Colombia, S. A. v. Hall, 466 U. S. 408, 417 (1984)
(“[The] unilateral activity of another party or a third person is not
an appropriate consideration when determining whether a defendant has
sufficient contacts with a forum State to justify an assertion of
jurisdiction”). We have thus rejected a plaintiff’s argument that a
Florida court could exercise per-sonal jurisdiction over a trustee in
Delaware based solely on the contacts of the trust’s settlor, who was
domiciled in Florida and had executed powers of appointment there.
Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U. S. 235–254 (1958). We have likewise held that
Oklahoma courts could not exercise personal jurisdiction over an
automobile distributor that supplies New York, New Jersey, and
Connecticut dealers based only on an automobile purchaser’s act of
driving it on Oklahoma highways. World-Wide Volks-wagen Corp., supra,
at 298. Put simply, however sig-nificant the plaintiff’s contacts with
the forum may be, those contacts cannot be “decisive in determining
whether the defendant’s due process rights are violated.” Rush, 444 U.
S., at 332.
Second, our “minimum contacts” analysis looks to the
defendant’s contacts with the forum State itself, not the defendant’s
contacts with persons who reside there. See, e.g., International Shoe,
supra, at 319 (Due process “does not contemplate that a state may make
binding a judgment in personam against an individual . . . with which
the state has no contacts, ties, or relations”); Hanson, supra, at 251
(“However minimal the burden of defending in a foreign tribunal, a
defendant may not be called upon to do so unless he has had the
‘minimal contacts’ with that State that are a prerequisite to its
exercise of power over him”). Accordingly, we have upheld the assertion
of jurisdiction over defendants who have purposefully “reach[ed] out
beyond” their State and into another by, for example, entering a
contractual relationship that “envisioned continuing and wide-reaching
contacts” in the forum State, Burger King, supra, at 479–480, or by
circulating magazines to “deliberately exploi[t]” a market in the forum
State, Keeton, supra, at 781. And although physical presence in the
forum is not a prerequisite to jurisdiction, Burger King, supra, at
476, physical entry into the State—either by the defendant in person or
through an agent, goods, mail, or some other means—is certainly a
relevant contact. See, e.g., Keeton, supra, at 773–774.
But the
plaintiff cannot be the only link between the defendant and the forum.
Rather, it is the defendant’s conduct that must form the necessary
connection with the forum State that is the basis for its jurisdiction
over him. See Burger King, supra, at 478 (“If the question is whether
an individual’s contract with an out-of-state party alone can
automatically establish sufficient minimum contacts in the other
party’s home forum, we believe the answer clearly is that it cannot”);
Kulko v. Superior Court of Cal., City and County of San Francisco, 436
U. S. 84, 93 (1978) (declining to “find personal jurisdiction in a
State . . . merely because [the plaintiff in a child support action]
was residing there”). To be sure, a defendant’s contacts with the forum
State may be intertwined with his transactions or interactions with the
plaintiff or other parties. But a defendant’s relationship with a
plaintiff or third party, standing alone, is an insufficient basis for
jurisdiction. See Rush, supra, at 332 (“Naturally, the parties’
relationships with each other may be significant in evaluating their
ties to the forum. The requirements of International Shoe, however,
must be met as to each defendant over whom a state court exercises
jurisdiction”). Due process requires that a defendant be haled into
court in a forum State based on his own affiliation with the State, not
based on the “random, fortuitous, or attenuated” contacts he makes by
interacting with other persons affiliated with the State. Burger King,
471 U. S., at 475 (internal quotation marks omitted).
2
These
same principles apply when intentional torts are involved. In that
context, it is likewise insufficient to rely on a defendant’s “random,
fortuitous, or attenuated contacts” or on the “unilateral activity” of
a plaintiff. Ibid. (same). A forum State’s exercise of jurisdiction
over an out-of-state intentional tortfeasor must be based on
intentional conduct by the defendant that creates the necessary
contacts with the forum.
Calder v. Jones, 465 U. S. 783,
illustrates the application of these principles. In Calder, a
California actress brought a libel suit in California state court
against a reporter and an editor, both of whom worked for the National
Enquirer at its headquarters in Florida. The plaintiff’s libel claims
were based on an article written and edited by the defendants in
Florida for publication in the National Enquirer, a national weekly
newspaper with a California circulation of roughly 600,000.
We
held that California’s assertion of jurisdiction over the defendants
was consistent with due process. Although we recognized that the
defendants’ activities “focus[ed]” on the plaintiff, our jurisdictional
inquiry “focuse[d] on ‘the relationship among the defendant, the forum,
and the litigation.’ ” Id., at 788 (quoting Shaffer, 433 U. S., at
204). Specifically, we examined the various contacts the defendants had
created with California (and not just with the plaintiff) by writing
the allegedly libelous story.
We found those forum contacts to
be ample: The defendants relied on phone calls to “California sources”
for the information in their article; they wrote the story about the
plaintiff’s activities in California; they caused reputa-tional injury
in California by writing an allegedly libelous article that was widely
circulated in the State; and the “brunt” of that injury was suffered by
the plaintiff in that State. 465 U. S., at 788–789. “In sum, California
[wa]s the focal point both of the story and of the harm suffered.” Id.,
at 789. Jurisdiction over the defendants was “therefore proper in
California based on the ‘effects’ of their Florida conduct in
California.” Ibid.
The crux of Calder was that the
reputation-based “effects” of the alleged libel connected the
defendants to California, not just to the plaintiff. The strength of
that connection was largely a function of the nature of the libel tort.
However scandalous a newspaper article might be, it can lead to a loss
of reputation only if communicated to (and read and understood by)
third persons. See Restatement (Second) of Torts §577, Comment b
(1976); see also ibid. (“[R]eputation is the estimation in which one’s
character is held by his neighbors or associates”). Accordingly, the
reputational injury caused by the defendants’ story would not have
occurred but for the fact that the defendants wrote an article for
publication in California that was read by a large number of California
citizens. Indeed, because publication to third persons is a necessary
element of libel, see id., §558, the defendants’ intentional tort
actually occurred in California. Keeton, 465 U. S., at 777 (“The tort
of libel is generally held to occur wherever the offending material is
circulated”). In this way, the “effects” caused by the defendants’
article—i.e., the injury to the plaintiff’s reputation in the
estimation of the California public—connected the defendants’ conduct
to California, not just to a plaintiff who lived there. That
connection, combined with the various facts that gave the article a
California focus, sufficed to authorize the California court’s exercise
of jurisdiction. 7
III
Applying the foregoing principles,
we conclude that petitioner lacks the “minimal contacts” with Nevada
that are a prerequisite to the exercise of jurisdiction over him.
Hanson, 357 U. S., at 251. It is undisputed that no part of
petitioner’s course of conduct occurred in Nevada. Petitioner
approached, questioned, and searched respondents, and seized the cash
at issue, in the Atlanta airport. It is alleged that petitioner later
helped draft a “false probable cause affidavit” in Georgia and
forwarded that affidavit to a United States Attorney’s Office in
Georgia to support a potential action for forfeiture of the seized
funds. 688 F. 3d, at 563. Petitioner never traveled to, conducted
activities within, contacted anyone in, or sent anything or anyone to
Nevada. In short, when viewed through the proper lens—whether the
defendant’s actions connect him to the forum—petitioner formed no
jurisdictionally relevant contacts with Nevada.
The Court of
Appeals reached a contrary conclusion by shifting the analytical focus
from petitioner’s contacts with the forum to his contacts with
respondents. See Rush, 444 U. S., at 332. Rather than assessing
petitioner’s own contacts with Nevada, the Court of Appeals looked to
petitioner’s knowledge of respondents’ “strong forum connections.” 688
F. 3d, at 577–579, 581. In the court’s view, that knowledge, combined
with its conclusion that respondents suffered foreseeable harm in
Nevada, satisfied the “minimum contacts” inquiry. 8 Id., at 582.
This
approach to the “minimum contacts” analysis impermissibly allows a
plaintiff’s contacts with the defendant and forum to drive the
jurisdictional analysis. Petitioner’s actions in Georgia did not create
sufficient contacts with Nevada simply because he allegedly directed
his conduct at plaintiffs whom he knew had Nevada connections. Such
reasoning improperly attributes a plain-tiff’s forum connections to the
defendant and makes those connections “decisive” in the jurisdictional
analysis. See Rush, supra, at 332. It also obscures the reality that
none of petitioner’s challenged conduct had anything to do with Nevada
itself.
Relying on Calder, respondents emphasize that they
suffered the “injury” caused by petitioner’s allegedly tortious conduct
(i.e., the delayed return of their gambling funds) while they were
residing in the forum. Brief for Respondents 14. This emphasis is
likewise misplaced. As previously noted, Calder made clear that mere
injury to a forum resident is not a sufficient connection to the forum.
Regardless of where a plaintiff lives or works, an injury is
jurisdictionally relevant only insofar as it shows that the defendant
has formed a contact with the forum State. The proper question is not
where the plaintiff experienced a particular injury or effect but
whether the defendant’s conduct connects him to the forum in a
meaningful way.
Respondents’ claimed injury does not evince a
connection between petitioner and Nevada. Even if we consider the
continuation of the seizure in Georgia to be a distinct injury, it is
not the sort of effect that is tethered to Nevada in any meaningful
way. Respondents (and only respondents) lacked access to their funds in
Nevada not because anything independently occurred there, but because
Nevada is where respondents chose to be at a time when they desired to
use the funds seized by petitioner. Respondents would have experienced
this same lack of access in California, Mississippi, or wherever else
they might have traveled and found themselves wanting more money than
they had. Unlike the broad publication of the forum-focused story in
Calder, the effects of petitioner’s con-duct on respondents are not
connected to the forum State in a way that makes those effects a proper
basis forjurisdiction. 9
The Court of Appeals pointed to other
possible contacts with Nevada, each ultimately unavailing. Respondents’
Nevada attorney contacted petitioner in Georgia, but that is precisely
the sort of “unilateral activity” of a third party that “cannot satisfy
the requirement of contact with the forum State.” Hanson, 357 U. S., at
253. Respondents allege that some of the cash seized in Georgia
“originated” in Nevada, but that attenuated connection was not created
by petitioner, and the cash was in Georgia, not Nevada, when petitioner
seized it. Finally, the funds were eventually returned to respondents
in Nevada, but petitioner had nothing to do with that return (indeed,
it seems likely that it was respondents’ unilateral decision to have
their funds sent to Nevada).
* * *
Well-established
principles of personal jurisdiction are sufficient to decide this case.
The proper focus of the “minimum contacts” inquiry in intentional-tort
cases is “ ‘the relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the
litigation.’ ” Calder, 465 U. S., at 788. And it is the defendant, not
the plaintiff or third parties, who must create contacts with the forum
State. In this case, the application of those principles is clear:
Petitioner’s relevant conduct occurred entirely in Georgia, and the
mere fact that his conduct affected plaintiffs with connectionsto the
forum State does not suffice to authorize jurisdiction. We therefore
reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Notes
1
Respondents allege that the sniff test was “at best, inconclusive,” and
there is no indication in the pleadings that drugs or drug residue were
ever found on or with the cash. App. 21.
2 The alleged affidavit
is not in the record. Because this case comes to us at the
motion-to-dismiss stage, we take respondents’ factual allegations as
true, including their allegations regarding the existence and content
of the affidavit.
3 The allegations in the complaint suggested
to the Court of Appeals that petitioner “definitely knew, at some point
after the seizure but before providing the alleged false probable cause
affidavit, that [respondents] had a significant connection to Nevada.”
688 F. 3d, at 578.
4 Judge Ikuta dissented. In her view, the
“false affidavit/forfeiture proceeding aspect” over which the majority
found jurisdiction proper was not raised as a separate claim in the
complaint, and she found it “doubtful that such a constitutional tort
even exists.” Id., at 593. After the court denied rehearing en banc,
the majority explained in a postscript that it viewed the filing of the
false affidavit, which effected a “continued seizure” of the funds, as
a separate Fourth Amendment violation. Id., at 588–589. Petitioner does
not dispute that reading here.
5 We also granted certiorari on
the question whether Nevada is a proper venue for the suit under 28 U.
S. C. §1391(b)(2). Because we resolve the case on jurisdictional
grounds, we do not decide whether venue was proper in Nevada.
6
“Specific” or “case-linked” jurisdiction “depends on an ‘affiliatio[n]
between the forum and the underlying controversy’ ” (i.e., an “activity
or an occurrence that takes place in the forum State and is therefore
subject to the State’s regulation”). Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations,
S. A. v. Brown, 564 U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 2). This is in
contrast to “general” or “all purpose” jurisdiction, which permits a
court to assert jurisdiction over a defendant based on a forum
connection unrelated to the underlying suit (e.g., domicile).
Respondents rely on specific jurisdiction only.
7 The defendants
in Calder argued that no contacts they had with California were
sufficiently purposeful because their employer was responsible for
circulation of the article. See Calder v. Jones, 465 U. S. 783, 789
(1984) . We rejected that argument. Even though the defendants did not
circulate the article themselves, they “expressly aimed” “their
intentional, and allegedly tortious, actions” at California be-cause
they knew the National Enquirer “ha[d] its largest circulation” in
California, and that the article would “have a potentially devastating
impact” there. Id., at 789–790.
8 Respondents propose a
substantially similar analysis. They suggest that “a defendant creates
sufficient minimum contacts with a forum when he (1) intentionally
targets (2) a known resident of the forum (3) for imposition of an
injury (4) to be suffered by the plaintiff while she is residing in the
forum state.” Brief for Respondents 26–27.
9 Respondents warn
that if we decide petitioner lacks minimum contacts in this case, it
will bring about unfairness in cases where intentional torts are
committed via the Internet or other electronic means (e.g., fraudulent
access of financial accounts or “phishing” schemes). As an initial
matter, we reiterate that the “minimum contacts” inquiry principally
protects the liberty of the nonresident defendant, not the interests of
the plaintiff. World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U. S., 286,
291–292 (1980). In any event, this case does not present the very
different questions whether and how a defendant’s virtual “presence”
and conduct translate into “contacts” with a particular State. To the
contrary, there is no question where the conduct giving rise to this
litigation took place: Petitioner seized physical cash from respondents
in the Atlanta airport, and he later drafted and forwarded an affidavit
in Georgia. We leave questions about virtual contacts for another day.