mr chief justice and may have pleased the court the ninth circuit held that dime or foreign corporation is subject to general jurisdiction in california and thus may be sued in california on any claim arising anywhere in the world the ninth circuit reached this conclusion by attributing to dime or the california contacts of a diner subsidiary mercedes benz usa a separate corporation that respects all corporate formalities and that is not alter ego the ninth circuit's approach violates due process do we have to reach question i mean i guess the ninth circuit must have been interpreted the long arm statute of california right that's correct are there were there california cases that disregarded the corporate form california respects the corporate form the ninth circuit applied what appears to be a federal common law of agency that the ninth circuit admittedly developed solely for purposes of the jurisdictional inquiry but the jurisdictional inquiry is conducted on the basis of the california statute it is but at the same time the california statute extends to the limit of due process and so what the ninth circuit did was a construed but the permissible outer balance of the due process clause was in this context it's californians who reference to the out of bounds of jurisdiction that cause and causes this owned subsidiary well mr chief justice there may be a constitutional limit certainly to the extent that say california adopted a rule that said for purposes of some sort of liability we are going to disregard the corporate form i think that could pose due process concerns to the extent that it is purporting to override say the corporate law of delaware well even on a prospective basis your brief talks about notice and fairness and predictability of california going forward this is the rule that we're going to apply is there any constitutional problem with that i still think there would be mr chief justice in other words i take it on his point about fair notice if california said going forward this is the rule we're going to apply but at the same time i'm not quite sure what in the constitution would empower say california to essentially override say delaware's corporate law and say fur our due process standard in the tax cases than it has in the personal jurisdiction cases if one were to look at say a good year or mcintyre or any of this court's more recent jurisdictional decisions it typically takes a much more rigorous view of the due process clause has limits on a sovereign's ability to adjudicate matters that arise outside the form that it has in the tax context would never get to this question if you hadn't conceded that there is general of something like that on behalf of a different corporation that's not a party to this lawsuit but it is true that we focused on the attribution question in the night and at the end of the day i don't think that that point affects the outcome in this case because  focused on the attribution issue but at the same i'm sorry please oh i was going to say you are at the same time i do think that that notion that m b usa was subject to general jurisdiction in california was necessarily part of the ninth circuit's holding so i do think it is properly preserved for this court's review if the court elected to resolve this case on that ground and mr dupree even if you win if that point if i understand it correctly you do not waive the point that even with all attribution in the world there that sense it really doesn't depend on the attribution standard all these hard questions of is it an alter ego test or is it an agency test and how does the constitution relate to state law because we could apply any test we wanted and there still wouldn't be general jurisdiction over damer in california justice kagan have certainly would be an acceptable route for this court to resolve a case in your honor has it exactly right in that even if one were to attribute the constitutional contacts of  dialer you would still be left with a joint enterprise that plainly is not at home in the state of california it would still be a german corporation headquartered in stuttgart that draws only approximately two percent of its overall vehicle revenue from california sales so small i'm not aware of anyone who disrespects it and in fact are uneek he talked at length about have california's exercise of general jurisdiction in this case would not be appropriate in virtually any other nation and frankly not i think it's true that the state doesn't have to allow companies to have wholly owned corporations under the constitution not of states nothing says they do or state could say  corporations well there's no limited liability or they could say in certain kinds of accidents there's no limit except you see they have lots of choice so what's really seems to have been going on here is the ninth circuit from your perspective just really misstated california law by out to lunch when they say they want to be as broad as the constitution they don't me because we can get rid of limited liability that that's what we do so how can we deal with a circuit court that seems to seriously mistake the law of the state well i think the way this court should deal with the ninth circuit this case is simply to reverse it your honor i think but i understand that that's what you would like is that bottom line i'd like to know the chain of reasoning that's the chain of reasoning your honor is simply that california like states generally respects the corporate form certainly is with regard to liability determinations in fact this is a point that professor brewer meyer makes at length in her brief where she says that it is anomalous for a state on one hand to respect the corporate form as to liability determinations but then when it comes to making these sorts of personal jurisdictional determinations it applies a completely different standard so i think we would want to know if we had a case and an end on a california highway injuring california people and they say charging that the mercedes benz was defectively manufactured would be jurisdiction over both the parent and  and certainly wanted to have its cars sold in california right what this court has said in its opinions in asahi and then of course in mcintyre is that you look at whether a corporation targeted the forum and in asahi justice o'connor's opinion identified several facts that could support such a finding for example whether the parent targeted advertising at the forum whether the parent designed a product specific way for use in that form and of course this court has said repeatedly that questions of specific jurisdiction are highly fact dependent and so in your honour's hypothetical i think what the plaintiffs would do to establish specific jurisdiction over the foreign parent would be precisely to attempt to amass evidence showing that time or targeted the form where they intend to bring t in the form and it was caused by defective manufacturing abroad that's a typical basis for jurisdiction under law well certainly courts have exercised specific jurisdiction in that situation but of course this court's ruling in mcintyre illustrates that's not necessarily always the case and there may of course be situations where a product does cause injury in the form yet the foreign parent is not necessarily subject to specific jurisdiction in that form how how would you answer just jurisprudence works well if you're going to answer the hypothetical in the opinion i would what would you say well i think i would go back to what this court has articulated first of all is the standard for specific jurisdiction which is purposeful of ailment or purposeful direction the opinion for the court that is ruling in your favor the answer i would give is that justice ginsburg hypothetical the foreign parent could be subject to specific jurisdiction if it purposefully availed itself of the forum and that very well could be an inquiry that turns on the subsidiaries and my question is whether or not by creating or saving is us the armor didn't purposely so before i don't think it did justice kennedy because i don't think there is any evidence in this record that suggests that by creating a subsidiary that does business generally it was purposefully targeting california mr distribut if we agree with you that the test should be whether the subsidiary is an alter ego of the parent would that depend on the law of the particular state in which the suit is broader would be based on some general all understanding of alter ego liability justice alito i think the best test would be to look to state law for guidance precisely because that is the law that commercial actors our country typically would look to to determine whether or not they might be in a veil piercing situation and what that would mean the due process would mean something different potentially in california and new york for example would that be very rather strange well i'm not sure your honor certainly discord in other due process contexts has to look to the substance of state law to inform its judgments for example in determining the scope of protected property interests in punitive damages cases it's looked to state law to determine the constitutional boundaries where else have we done it in the personal jurisdiction context to find the limits of the due process federal to a process in accordance with state law well maybe create tests in international shoe in burger king separate from straight to the test this court created in international show i think is probably best characterized as a federal common law test i think that this situation is not quite analogous precisely for the reason i mentioned my answer to justice alito is that commercial actors and lawyers and parties throughout the country typically look to state law for guidance and if this court were to adopt a general federal common law standard under which i think we would still prevail but even what are we to with all the of that points to  articles that talk about the corporate veil piercing as the most arbitrary of state was out there well i'm not sure i know how how corporations get in the sense of comfort from a law  irrationally apply it according to some well i think some of the candidly may overstate the purported confusion at the end of the day there piercing law is certainly well settled and embedded in this country's legal traditions and i think it is sufficiently capable of precise application in advance corporations deal with that standard on a day to day basis and so although i take an honest point that at the margins there may be room for debate as to whether a veil should be  particular case i think by and large it's a general standard it's a familiar standard and it's a workable standard and it's the standard that people look to on a day to day basis so i've been looking for the text of the california jurisdiction statute where is it i know that's what may please the court as several questions from the court suggest the due process clause itself does not supply fixed rules for the attribution of foreign contacts from one corporation to another rather such rules are the province of the positive law that creates the corporation and other subset of law such as agency that the fines the relationship of that to ridicule person to other persons and those rules are the ones that the corporations themselves rely upon and that others who deal with the corporations rely upon it you tell me why we just don't rely on the tests we apply in the tax cases  chance and it says if you're functionally and economically tied together and you control the other entity of the the parent controls the subsidiary your earnings are subject to the due process clause and can be taxed by an individual state seems like a fairly simple test and it won't break down the complicated california test really that was the essence it was getting to so why do we go to the big of state loan and one of which just do the true in trouble but in the instance you're talking about intoxication and this is related to a question the chief justice asked but your process clause does not itself prohibit a state or the federal government from attributing some sort of liability for example from a from a subsidiary to a parent or in the case of taxation of choosing to look at the entire enterprise of which the parent corporation is the head but those are the results of the liberty choices by the law making organs of the state but state legislature when congress does it  federal government i do not reflected a general determination that in all circumstances the acts of an agent or the acts of a subsidiary should be attributed to the parent in fact the general rule is quite to the contrary in the situation of individuals does the does the due process will regarding taxation of individuals by a state align with the the ability of somebody to sue that person in the state somebody for example if someone is a partner in a law firm that has offices all over the country they may be paying income taxes in many jurisdictions are they subject to general jurisdiction if there's a you have somebody who works in d c and never goes to california but has to pay some income tax in california are they subject to sued in california for any claim that i know i was against them though they are no they are not and for the taxation there has to for taxation to begin with there has to be some nexus between the individual and the and the state the rules that i think just a sort of more was talking about in the federal tax code has similar provisions really have to do with the measure of taxation and the most of those situations certainly in taxation among the states there isn't a portion that formula yes the overall income may be lumped together for purposes of the initial step but then there are some apportionment formula that says in the mobile case that cited in the breeze for example that that for a month and only tax so much of it that portion that is fairly attributable to vermont so in that sense it's analogous to specific jurisdiction you're looking at you're coming up with some formula  taxation to the state that is imposing imposing the pattern even what do you think about this that you know as i've been looking through these cases it seems to me that all these actually abuse issues and the conflict about attribution arises because courts generally have an improperly broad understanding of general jurisdiction and don't quite understand the distinction between general and specific jurisdiction if the courts if the court here had understood that general jurisdiction applies when a company is essentially at home in a place would any of these questions have arisen probably not in the court of appeals i think it's page twenty three of its opinion says let me ask you do you have a recommendation as to whether or not we should remain in this case if we accept your theory of the case which i'll let you explain doesn't require remey and it does not parent is not liable for the acts of a subsidiary is the general rule there are established exceptions to that traditional exceptions they ought to rigaud exception and the situ sure principle is responsible for the acts of an agent attribut on those bases because they are traditional would not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice under the due process clause here respondent that's not our response do not argue for not that alter ego was satisfied and as for agency there is no argument here the traditional agency requirements are satisfied under tradition if you have the universal agent principle an independent contractor is the subsidiary of the ladder we think of it as what do we think of as an independent candidate it's just something else it's an independent entity it may be doing work for the parent or it may not in this case at page one seventy nine a the joint appendix agreement between dimer and and b in california i would think so particularly given the part given the agreement in this case which obligates time were to market throughout the fifty states and the problem of sales that are directed to the united states some major portion of which is expected to be an intended to be in california i don't think there would be any question the california would have some sound difference between if it can general jurisdiction that daimler might be might be  found that there is jurisdiction over daimler in a case which involves the blowing up of a car in california but not over something that's not related to any of its contacts in california right that is that is the  and that and and the us a whole itself as the sales agent here of the cards were sold and the usa in germany and sent to the united states but if there was an agency relationship it doesn't necessarily mean that would be at home in california whatever but most agency relationships title stay with the principals so i don't know what more i mean doesn't it transfers to the agent but for the benefit of the principals  on the various ways in which germany controls this subsidiary it appoints all its officers it approves all its operating procedures it approves all of the people it hires and fires it seems like there isn't chief justice and please the court i'd like to be in with a question of what's in this case and what isn't because the fact pattern in this case goes rise to multiple complicated questions only two of which have been adequately preserved in this case and one of the questions that's not in the case justice kaga is whether or not if its contents are attributable there sufficient to establish general jurisdiction this case has been in litigation on the personal jurisdiction issue for eight years throughout that period we have argued that if m b usas contacts were attributed to lead to good results when you assume something that's obviously an error you know it leads you to go onto a road that you wouldn't otherwise have gone on to and get to a destination that might be improper itself so it's it's  practice and i understand your you know idea about they didn't argue this they didn't argue that but to assume something that's obviously a fallacy as your basis for a decision is not likely to  your decision we decided goodyear did me and yet even though there's no effort to reconcile the case with goodyear is there could be we hadn't decided by the time we decided that it still could have been taken on back that's didn't make the precise argument that they should have made it but they basically put the question at issue is damage subject to general jurisdiction answer no daimler is a german corporation if it were subject to calif general jurisdiction in california so too it would be subject to general jurisdiction in every state in the united states and all of that has got to be wrong or with respect justice kagan that's not as easy as you seem to think it is let me give you an example and perkins this court cited a prior case as a quintessential parodic m example general jurisdiction called barrow a steamship company versus cain in that case it approved this court approved the exercise of general jurisdiction in new york over a british company for a court that occurred in ireland based on the fact that it had an international shoe cited to barrows as an example of a parodic matter could get there was ever an example of a cooperation being at home in a particular place it's then again philippine company that was shut down entirely it to i'm still hung up on why we have to confront a federal constitutional question it doesn't seem to me that a state statute which says we want to exercise jurisdiction to the extent the constitution when california adopts this statute it means to change its standard to all regarding corporations regarding individuals and so forth why should we assume that because petition again didn't make that argument either now i'm going to look at look at look at the obvious it might not by late the constitution i mean it's the same question but it is bothering me too it might not violate the constitution of the united states who are a state to say we don't have limited liability in respect to the subsidiary corporation of a general corporation it's very unlikely to do that he's going to be a big problem to get investment in that state but it might not violate it might not violate the constitution is here to say you know we are in california not going to have subsidiaries when a plaintive comes on the basis of something that happened outside the country but we will have it when in fact he sues on something that happened in california now a state could do that i guess but it's pretty odd and if you look what the what the ninth circuit said in its opinion it never referred to california law directly it's all ninth circuit cases or second circuit cases the only thing it says about california is probably something  quoted in her case something like so what am i supposed to do because state law is up to the state how do i handle that this case has been litigated on the interpretation of the california statute that says that california intended notwithstanding what rules it applies for liability to exercise personal jurisdiction to the further stent extent permitted by the constitution and here it's not that difficult a question here the question is if petitioner would have been subject to general jurisdiction and california had it conducted the same operations through a subdivision in the case does the due process clause give it a constitutional right to avoid that jurisdiction simply by conducting the same operations through a whol that what you think california law if one wants to go as far as the constitution would permit were not any answer then to my question is yes you think right today in california the law is there is no there is unlimited liability for a corporation that is a law regarding corporate liability would apply to all of your claims you have not a federal claims you have argentine claims isn't that correct that's what our four new law controls personal jurisdiction and it doesn't doesn't necessarily control corporate liability let's say with respect to the argentine claim no it certainly wouldn't the choice of all principles would almost certainly point to argentina but why should we now that the federal claims are out i mean when you started this you had a claim and at the we don't think so i think you'd have to take into account the skase has been in litigation for eight years already i think that's a substantial reason for the court to want to allow the case to me i recognize that we would have a very hard time appealing from a decision that refused to exercise  jurisdiction but again the on the question that the court actually granted sort on and which was actually preserved here i do think that the court could simply hold that look after bishan of contacts between a wholly o subsidiary and its parent is not so unreasonable as to violate the constitution at the end of the day the due process question is whether the defendant has sufficiently availed itself of the benefits of doing business in the state understand general jurisdiction questions with respect i'd i don't think that's correct justice kennedy's opinion for the plurality in the castro for example identified the underlying premise of both general and specific jurisdiction on availing oneself of the benefits of being in the state and employed here distinguish it to buy things general jurisdiction means it's equivalent to residence for an individual it's where you're  l and yet general jurisdiction was much broader in the days before milan statute but now that we had specific jurisdiction where the event occurred just the specific jurisdiction has expanded so general distinction as strong i understand that there are very serious and important questions with respect to what it means to be at home in a state and that if petitioner had raised those arguments below it might actually have prevailed but this court e as well we have argued for eight years that if you attribute the context and b s a to dine layer those contacts are sufficient to establish general jurisdiction over time with their sufficient to satisfy any money i'm arriving anyplace in the war that's right that's been  argument they've could have said no that's not right they could have said m b i say doesn't do enough business in california they could have said the general that doing business theory of general jurisdiction is no good they could have said you can only be subject what i think is their concession is quite consistent with the proposition that the distinction between parent and subsidiary is meaningful for jurisdictional purposes and that you're not just automatically an age you yourself do not defend the ninth circuit's position that if dimer gives ninth circuit's reasoning to its full extent that's right we do think that this is an easier case because we have a wholly owned subsidiary that operates in very much the same way as a subdivision would notice that in the federal does it not follow from from your argument that a federal court should entertain a suit against the shareholders of a foreign corporation when that foreign corporation has s shareholders have the right to do is appoint the people to the board here dimwit exercise a degree of control that is much more significant i can't see a distinction and i think if you stretch the california statute as far as you some lines but it can't be done in mechanical way here goodyear provides a safe harbor to companies that want to make sure that they're not subject to general jurisdiction in california they can do so by selling their cars to an independent distributor the way petitioner used to do in the way th but with respect to go it go back to the to the foundation piece of international sea and that case recognized that you can be an agent for one purpose but not for it and so the people the salesmen who are promoting the sales and shoes when the agents of international issues for the purpose of promoting the sale of shoes then when not an all purpose agent for the purpose  dealing with the state giving a mishap of the corporation so you could have an agency one purpose selling cars in california but totally unrelated to torturing people in  that's right but there but i think that we need to separate the two ideas of what does it take to make petition at home in california once it's established that it is at home in california it is simply a traditional aspect of general jurisdiction that it would be subject to sue for things that happened abroad if this suit had been brought against apple computer which is headquartered in california i don't think we would be here today but the question here is whether the conduct in california is rendered insufficient by virtue of the fact that it was undertaken by a subsidy this exam problem and i don't know what to do it's really just a school it has been mentioning this problem we're seeing it through the lens of jurisdiction i'm not i'm seeing it through the lens of corporate law five shareholders get together from outside california and they set up a corporation in california wa to insulate themselves from liability  bosses now instead of those five shareholders everything is the same but now it's a german corporation and suddenly they can't insulate themselves from the lawsuits in california i think it unlikely that california would have such a corporate law whether it goes by the name of jurisdiction or some other name but that's a state law question so what am i supposed to do decide the case on the assumptions upon which it's been litigated and make clear that you're doing it well another thing we could do is we could say we've decided now two cases that seem to bear on this and one is good you're in the others and we could say we'll send it back or consideration of this case in light of us we would have no problem with that if you made clear that it was open to us under remand to argue that they didn't preserve these arguments i would be a fine result for us  justice prior and i seem to think a question of state law don't you think it's extraordinary that the ninth circuit could make such a significant holding on on california law  without there is a certification procedure of california as there is otherwise why wouldn't they have asked the california supreme court whether whether this jurisdiction statute was meant to alter corporate law or you know tort law or you know just imagine any change in a law that would bear upon jurisdiction and all those changes must be assumed to have happened couldn't couldn't the ask that is that w asked them to but as soon as did we that the statute meant that they wanted the most permissive attribution of all that's permitted by the due process clause and i don't think it's unreasonable that's an unreasonable interpretation of the statute i recognize that it's a little bit problematic that these statutes don't give greater definitive guidance on the position hasn't complained about that either and so on the premises on which this case was litigated i do think you can decide this case by resolving two questions first on the assumption that if m b s a's contacts that are attributable to petition are there sufficient to make it at home does the fact that those contacts are through a wholly owned subsidiary right in this subdivision make the exercise of general jurisdiction improper if we assume for the sake of argument that there isn't a preservation issue regarding this in home this after question why shouldn't the rule be that unless a corporation is incorporated in the jurisdiction or has its principal place of business in the jurisdiction the acts of the subsidiary are not attributable unless it's an alter ego it's a nice clean wall many of the prominent scholars in this area think that  american doctrine of general jurisdiction doesn't serve any good purpose now that specific jurisdiction has been expanded makes us an international outlier why should we have a nice clear rule like that and if there's not it will know exactly where things stand just to be clear there are two parts of that rule there's one that's the assertion that ordinarily you're only at home in a place of principle business or principle principal place of business or place of incorporation of the other is a will only apply that well with respect to subsidiary contacts that additional thing which is necessary to shoehorn it into this case i think it's a very artificial level english court is going to do something that we were only apply that rule if the contacts i understand justice alito the proposal will only apply that rule if this is the contacts in the state are through a subsidiary that's a very artificial gerrymander honestly to fit the facts of this case if this court is going to say that the doing business there of general jurisdiction is no longer good law it should do one time expansive notion of doing business is a basis for general jurisdiction and then that shouldn't be taken into account as a basis for constitutional this isn't me and yet what we're talking about is the notion of whether it's fair and reasonable to require a corporation to answer in a forum and is is what the country think  enlightening and what's fair and reasonable i don't know that you can take into account at all but i will say that of the constitutional test is whether it's consistent with traditional notions of fairness and justice many in traditional american notions of  percent of its sales are in california how do you argue that it's subject to jurisdiction general jurisdiction not specific jurisdiction general jurisdiction which means over suits that have nothing to do with california or indeed as here over in the united colorful it's two point four percent of its sales that probably make it subject to general jurisdiction every place but the problem is a corporation shouldn't be jurisdictionally better off simply because it's bigger than its competitors who are smaller and therefore necessarily do a bigger portion of their business  a smaller number of places i think it's there's a very significant fairness problem with the proportionality test suggested by the government again never raised in this case nobody ever argued that m p s it didn't do enough business in california in fact it's done billions of dollars of business there and it's enjoyed the benefits of being in the state of doing business in the state to a far greater degree than many of its competitors say tesla which is subject to general jurisdiction for suits for anything that does anywhere in the world if it's subject jurisdiction and california isn't subject to general jurisdiction in all forty nine other states i think there would still be a question of whether they would be able to raise the arguments they haven't raised and other jurisdictions i think it may be that the billions of dollars that they  doing business in california is enough but the few millions of dollars they do in iowa is not so everybody is subject to general jurisdiction unlike california new york and florida because they're big markets but no worries about you know delaware that may be the result of an example rhode island that may be the case if you know the court as always recognise the doing business is a knock off back to the barr york sued in new york at the state of pennsylvania corporation and the justification was it had a sales office in new york now if this court thinks that those cases were wrong if it thinks that we need to change our conceptions of general jurisdiction in light of evolved or not isn't that exactly what good year hell and now i'm good you didn't purport to change anything i know you used a new phrase to describe the prior precedent but it wasn't supporting to revise it and i don't think that there was substantial argument in that idea the one consequence of that and getting back to what i would say to justice kagan is people aren't subject to general jurisdiction only in one or two places they're subject to general jurisdiction and then where they set foot and are served with process and i think it is and a lot of places again this is an important question that hasn't been briefed in this case it wasn't preserved below and i think that you ought to decide the case on the grounds on the premises of which it's been litigated for eight years and if you can't do that you want to dismiss th or you have to pick some metric and in this course cases of always then general it talked about minimum contacts we talked about systematic and continuous business operations in the state and there's the court has always recognized that those are not standards that are capable  mechanical operation of bright line rules if you think that you need to develop some new standards you ought to do it in a case when that's squarely presented and adequately briefed you know for the questions thank you counsel mr dupree you have four minutes remaining i think that we're at this court to either beam in the case or dismiss the case for one thing the circuit split would persist in one thirds decision in the event of her being and would remain on the books even if this court were to remain the decision the second circuit which you care  how we do it given that so many issues have not been adequately briefed conceded when they are obviously felicia's and unsupportable why don't we just say simply exercise of jurisdiction was on reasonable in this case well just to set aside neither you or the other side have argued that there isn't a reasonable in this component i know some of my colleagues still think there is but both of you have proceeded in your briefing as if there is do you care how you win well yes your honor i think we do i think we do and let me say this i think that with regard to your honor's points about issues being waived or forfeited below the only issue that even arguably even arguably was forfeited below is the discreet question as to whether mercedes benz itself is subject to general jurisdiction in california the question that justice kagan and others were inquiring about namely that even were one to accept the attribution theory and evaluate dimer as a joint enterprise would that render the combined enterprise at home in california we plainly did not waive or forfeit that question in fact we expressly addressed it in our opening brief and we have been fighting in this case from day one to argue that even if you were to attribute the context there is no basis for jurisdiction over that question is squarely presented for this court's review i also think that as justice ginsburg and others have noted there has been some confusion in the lower courts over the distinction between specific jurisdiction and general jurisdiction this court sought in good year for example and i think that were this court to resolve this case on the ground that justice kagan suggested or justice alito suggested namely that a corporation cannot be at home outside of the areas where it maintains its principal place of business or is incorporated that it can't be subject to general jurisdiction anywhere else that would be a clean rule it would be a workable rule i think it's fully consistent with what the court said in good year and it would provide clarity and guidance to the lower courts and eliminate the circuit split that currently exists over agency jurisdiction a couple other quick points justice scalia i regret to report that neither the parties nor the courts below reproduced the text of the california statute the solicitor general however to his credit did on page four of his brief it simply says that california may exercise jurisdiction on any basis not inconsistent with the constitution of california or the united states and the ninth circuit panel on page nine of the petitioners appendix said that therefore the question is this case in this case is simply whether the exercise of jurisdiction would exceed the promise old balance of due process the last point i want to make and we've been discussing legal issues is just to remind the court of the fact of this case this is a case involving argentine plaintiffs suing a german corporation based on events that allegedly occurred in argentina more than thirty years ago this case has no connection to the united states and it has no business in a california court and the ninth circuit's contrary conclusion is indefensible and for that reason we ask that the judgment be reversed thank you counsel