Cases on Tap for Tomorrow’s SCOTUS Conference: Are Cert Grants Coming on Pleading and Personal Jurisdiction?

A couple of cases on the calendar for tomorrow's Supreme Court conference are worth a quick mention. Both appear on SCOTUSblog’s "relist" list. (That they had already been calendared for previous conferences and avoided a quick cert. denial presumably means they generated at least some interest or need for further inquiry.) 

One is Johnson v. City of Shelby, a case out of the Fifth Circuit that raises some interesting questions about pleading standards that we covered earlier. This is the second time Johnson has been relisted.

Another is AEP Energy Services v. Heartland Regional Medical Center, a case out of the Ninth Circuit on personal jurisdiction. Here are the questions presented in AEP:

1. Whether due process permits a court to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over non-consenting, out-of-state defendants based on the plaintiffs’ bare allegation that the defendants engaged in a nationwide conspiracy outside the forum that had an intended effect inside the forum (as well as presumably in every other state).

2. Whether due process permits a court to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over non-consenting, out-of-state defendants when the defendants’ limited forum conduct bears no causal relationship to the plaintiffs’ claim.

You can find all of the AEP cert-stage briefs at SCOTUSblog. The Ninth Circuit’s opinion is In re Western States Wholesale Natural Gas Antitrust Litigation, 715 F.3d 716.