Pennoyer v. Neff
| Pennoyer v. Neff | |
|---|---|
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| Argued October, 1877 Decided May 13, 1878 |
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| Full case name | Sylvester Pennoyer v. Marcus Neff |
| Citations | 95 U.S. 714 (more) |
| Prior history | Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Oregon |
| Holding | |
| No personal jurisdiction can be had over defendants who are physically absent from the state or have not consented to the court's jurisdiction; personal jurisdiction must comport with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Field |
| Dissent | Hunt |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. Amend. XIV | |
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Overruled by
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| Shaffer v. Heitner (1977) | |
Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714 (1878), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that a court can exert personal jurisdiction over a party if that party is served with process while physically present within the state.
Marcus Neff hired an attorney, John H. Mitchell, to help him with paperwork and other legal matters incidental to his efforts to obtain a land grant under the Donation Law of Oregon, an act of the United States Congress enacted on September 27, 1850 (expired December 1, 1855) which provided an incentive for the development of land in the territories of the American West by conveying parcels of land to be used for further development. Neff was ultimately successful in procuring property on the ancestral homeland of the Multnomah Indian tribe in Multnomah County, Oregon.
The property had an estimated value of $15,000 at the time. Mitchell later sued Neff in the Circuit Court of Multnomah County in the state of Oregon for outstanding debts related to his legal services but because Neff was not to be found there Mitchell won the lawsuit by default judgment which was entered in Mitchell's favor after Neff failed to appear in court.
When Mitchell won the lawsuit in February 1866, Neff's land grant had not yet been conferred and consequently Mitchell, possibly waiting for the arrival of the grant, waited until July 1866 to levy execution on the property at which time the court ordered the land seized and sold in order to pay the judgment. Mitchell arranged for the sheriff to seize the land, purchased it at public auction, and subsequently assigned it to Sylvester Pennoyer causing Neff to sue Pennoyer in 1874 in federal court to recover his land. After Neff won, Pennoyer appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
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