(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2010 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

GOODYEAR DUNLOP TIRES OPERATIONS, S. A., 

ET AL. v. BROWN ET UX., CO-ADMINISTRATORS OF

THE ESTATE OF BROWN, ET AL. 

CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA 

No. 10–76. Argued January 11, 2011 —Decided June 27, 2011 

Respondents, North Carolina residents whose sons died in a bus accident outside Paris, France, filed a suit for wrongful-death damages in

North Carolina state court. Alleging that the accident was caused by

tire failure, they named as defendants Goodyear USA, an Ohio corporation, and petitioners, three Goodyear USA subsidiaries, organized

and operating, respectively, in Luxembourg, Turkey, and France. Petitioners’ tires are manufactured primarily for European and Asian

markets and differ in size and construction from tires ordinarily sold 

in the United States. Petitioners are not registered to do business in

North Carolina; have no place of business, employees, or bank accounts in the State; do not design, manufacture, or advertise their

products in the State; and do not solicit business in the State or sell

or ship tires to North Carolina customers. Even so, a small percentage of their tires were distributed in North Carolina by other Goodyear USA affiliates. The trial court denied petitioners’ motion to

dismiss the claims against them for want of personal jurisdiction. 

The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that the 

North Carolina courts had general jurisdiction over petitioners, 

whose tires had reached the State through “the stream of commerce.” 

Held: Petitioners were not amenable to suit in North Carolina on 

claims unrelated to any activity of petitioners in the forum State.

Pp. 6–14.

(a) The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause sets the 

outer boundaries of a state tribunal’s authority to proceed against a

defendant. The pathmarking decision of International Shoe Co. v. 

Washington, 326 U. S. 310, provides that state courts may exercise 

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personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant who has “certain

minimum contacts with [the State] such that the maintenance of the

suit does not offend ‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial

justice.’ ” Id., at 316. Endeavoring to give specific content to the “fair

play and substantial justice” concept, the Court in International Shoe 

classified cases involving out-of-state corporate defendants. First, 

the Court recognized that jurisdiction could be asserted where the

corporation’s in-state activity is “continuous and systematic” and 

gave rise to the episode-in-suit. Id., at 317. It also observed that the 

commission of “single or occasional acts” in a State may be sufficient

to render a corporation answerable in that State with respect to those

acts, though not with respect to matters unrelated to the forum connections. Id., at 318. These two categories compose what is now

known as “specific jurisdiction.” Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S. A. v. Hall, 466 U. S. 408, 414, n. 8. International Shoe distinguished from cases that fit within the “specific jurisdiction” categories, “instances in which the continuous corporate operations within a 

state [are] so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit

against it on causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct

from those activities.” 326 U. S., at 318. Adjudicatory authority so 

grounded is now called “general jurisdiction.” Helicopteros, 466 U. S., 

at 414, n. 9. Since International Shoe, this Court’s decisions have 

elaborated primarily on circumstances that warrant the exercise of 

specific jurisdiction. In only two decisions postdating International 

Shoe has this Court considered whether an out-of-state corporate defendant’s in-state contacts were sufficiently “continuous and systematic” to justify the exercise of general jurisdiction over claims unrelated to those contacts: Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining Co., 342 

U. S. 437; and Helicopteros, 466 U. S. 408. Pp. 6–9.

(b) Petitioners lack “the kind of continuous and systematic general 

business contacts” necessary to allow North Carolina to entertain a

suit against them unrelated to anything that connects them to the

State. Helicopteros, 466 U. S., at 416. The stream-of-commerce cases 

on which the North Carolina court relied relate to exercises of specific 

jurisdiction in products liability actions, in which a nonresident defendant, acting outside the forum, places in the stream of commerce a

product that ultimately causes harm inside the forum. Many state

long-arm statutes authorize courts to exercise specific jurisdiction

over manufacturers when the events in suit, or some of them, occurred within the forum State. The North Carolina court’s stream-ofcommerce analysis elided the essential difference between casespecific and general jurisdiction. Flow of a manufacturer’s products

into the forum may bolster an affiliation germane to specific jurisdiction, see, e.g., World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U. S. 

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286, 297; but ties serving to bolster the exercise of specific jurisdiction do not warrant a determination that, based on those ties, the forum has general jurisdiction over a defendant. A corporation’s “continuous activity of some sorts within a state,” International Shoe 

instructed, “is not enough to support the demand that the corporation 

be amenable to suits unrelated to that activity.” 326 U. S., at 318. 

 Measured against Helicopteros and Perkins, North Carolina is not 

a forum in which it would be permissible to subject petitioners to

general jurisdiction. In the 1952 Perkins case, general jurisdiction

was appropriately exercised over a Philippine corporation sued in

Ohio, where the company’s affairs were overseen during World War 

II. In Helicopteros, however, the survivors of U. S. citizens killed 

when a helicopter owned by a Colombian corporation crashed in Peru 

could not maintain wrongful-death actions against that corporation

in Texas, where the company’s contacts “consisted of sending its chief 

executive officer to Houston for a contract-negotiation session; accepting into its New York bank account checks drawn on a Houston bank; 

purchasing helicopters, equipment, and training services from [a 

Texas enterprise]; and sending personnel to [Texas] for training.”

466 U. S., at 416. These links to Texas did not “constitute the kind of 

continuous and systematic general business contacts . . . found to exist in Perkins,” and were insufficient to support the exercise of jurisdiction over a claim that neither “ ‘ar[o]se out of’ . . . no[r] related to” 

the defendant’s activities in Texas. Id., at 415–416. This Court sees 

no reason to differentiate from the ties to Texas held insufficient in 

Helicopteros, the sales of petitioners’ tires sporadically made in North 

Carolina through intermediaries. Pp. 9–13.

(c) Neither below nor in their brief in opposition to the petition for

certiorari did respondents urge disregard of petitioners’ discrete

status as subsidiaries and treatment of all Goodyear entities as a 

“unitary business,” so that jurisdiction over the parent would draw in 

the subsidiaries as well. Respondents have therefore forfeited this 

contention. Pp. 13–14. 

199 N. C. App. 50, 681 S. E. 2d 382, reversed. 

GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. 

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_________________ 

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Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 10–76 

GOODYEAR DUNLOP TIRES OPERATIONS, S. A., 

ET AL., PETITIONERS v. EDGAR D. BROWN,

ET UX., CO-ADMINISTRATORS OF THE ESTATE

OF JULIAN DAVID BROWN, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF 

NORTH CAROLINA

[June 27, 2011] 

JUSTICE GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. 

This case concerns the jurisdiction of state courts over

corporations organized and operating abroad. We address, 

in particular, this question: Are foreign subsidiaries of a

United States parent corporation amenable to suit in state 

court on claims unrelated to any activity of the subsidiaries in the forum State? 

A bus accident outside Paris that took the lives of two 

13-year-old boys from North Carolina gave rise to the litigation we here consider. Attributing the accident to a

defective tire manufactured in Turkey at the plant of a

foreign subsidiary of The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (Goodyear USA), the boys’ parents commenced an 

action for damages in a North Carolina state court; they

named as defendants Goodyear USA, an Ohio corporation,

and three of its subsidiaries, organized and operating, 

respectively, in Turkey, France, and Luxembourg. Goodyear USA, which had plants in North Carolina and regularly engaged in commercial activity there, did not contest 

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the North Carolina court’s jurisdiction over it; Goodyear

USA’s foreign subsidiaries, however, maintained that

North Carolina lacked adjudicatory authority over them. 

A state court’s assertion of jurisdiction exposes defendants to the State’s coercive power, and is therefore subject to review for compatibility with the Fourteenth

Amendment’s Due Process Clause. International Shoe 

Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S. 310, 316 (1945) (assertion of 

jurisdiction over out-of-state corporation must comply with

“‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice’” 

(quoting Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457, 463 (1940))).

Opinions in the wake of the pathmarking International 

Shoe decision have differentiated between general or allpurpose jurisdiction, and specific or case-linked jurisdiction. Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S. A. v. Hall, 

466 U. S. 408, 414, nn. 8, 9 (1984). 

A court may assert general jurisdiction over foreign 

(sister-state or foreign-country) corporations to hear any 

and all claims against them when their affiliations with

the State are so “continuous and systematic” as to render 

them essentially at home in the forum State. See International Shoe, 326 U. S., at 317. Specific jurisdiction, on the 

other hand, depends on an “affiliatio[n] between the forum

and the underlying controversy,” principally, activity or an

occurrence that takes place in the forum State and is

therefore subject to the State’s regulation. von Mehren & 

Trautman, Jurisdiction to Adjudicate: A Suggested Analysis, 79 Harv. L. Rev. 1121, 1136 (1966) (hereinafter von

Mehren & Trautman); see Brilmayer et al., A General

Look at General Jurisdiction, 66 Texas L. Rev. 721, 782 

(1988) (hereinafter Brilmayer). In contrast to general, allpurpose jurisdiction, specific jurisdiction is confined to

adjudication of “issues deriving from, or connected with, 

the very controversy that establishes jurisdiction.” von 

Mehren & Trautman 1136. 

Because the episode-in-suit, the bus accident, occurred 

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in France, and the tire alleged to have caused the accident 

was manufactured and sold abroad, North Carolina courts 

lacked specific jurisdiction to adjudicate the controversy.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals so acknowledged. 

Brown v. Meter, 199 N. C. App. 50, 57–58, 681 S. E. 2d 

382, 388 (2009). Were the foreign subsidiaries nonetheless 

amenable to general jurisdiction in North Carolina courts? 

Confusing or blending general and specific jurisdictional

inquiries, the North Carolina courts answered yes. Some 

of the tires made abroad by Goodyear’s foreign subsidiaries, the North Carolina Court of Appeals stressed, had 

reached North Carolina through “the stream of commerce”; that connection, the Court of Appeals believed,

gave North Carolina courts the handle needed for the 

exercise of general jurisdiction over the foreign corporations. Id., at 67–68, 681 S. E. 2d, at 394–395. 

A connection so limited between the forum and the foreign corporation, we hold, is an inadequate basis for the

exercise of general jurisdiction. Such a connection does 

not establish the “continuous and systematic” affiliation 

necessary to empower North Carolina courts to entertain 

claims unrelated to the foreign corporation’s contacts with

the State. 

I 

On April 18, 2004, a bus destined for Charles de Gaulle 

Airport overturned on a road outside Paris, France. Passengers on the bus were young soccer players from North

Carolina beginning their journey home. Two 13-year-olds, 

Julian Brown and Matthew Helms, sustained fatal injuries. The boys’ parents, respondents in this Court, filed a

suit for wrongful-death damages in the Superior Court of

Onslow County, North Carolina, in their capacity as administrators of the boys’ estates. Attributing the accident

to a tire that failed when its plies separated, the parents 

alleged negligence in the “design, construction, testing, 

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and inspection” of the tire. 199 N. C. App., at 51, 681 S. E.

2d, at 384 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Goodyear Luxembourg Tires, SA (Goodyear Luxembourg), Goodyear Lastikleri T. A. S. (Goodyear Turkey),

and Goodyear Dunlop Tires France, SA (Goodyear

France), petitioners here, were named as defendants. 

Incorporated in Luxembourg, Turkey, and France, respectively, petitioners are indirect subsidiaries of Goodyear

USA, an Ohio corporation also named as a defendant in 

the suit. Petitioners manufacture tires primarily for sale 

in European and Asian markets. Their tires differ in size 

and construction from tires ordinarily sold in the United 

States. They are designed to carry significantly heavier 

loads, and to serve under road conditions and speed limits 

in the manufacturers’ primary markets.1 

In contrast to the parent company, Goodyear USA,

which does not contest the North Carolina courts’ personal

jurisdiction over it, petitioners are not registered to do

business in North Carolina. They have no place of business, employees, or bank accounts in North Carolina.

They do not design, manufacture, or advertise their products in North Carolina. And they do not solicit business in 

North Carolina or themselves sell or ship tires to North 

Carolina customers. Even so, a small percentage of petitioners’ tires (tens of thousands out of tens of millions

manufactured between 2004 and 2007) were distributed 

within North Carolina by other Goodyear USA affiliates. 

These tires were typically custom ordered to equip specialized vehicles such as cement mixers, waste haulers, and 

boat and horse trailers. Petitioners state, and respondents 

—————— 

1Respondents portray Goodyear USA’s structure as a reprehensible 

effort to “outsource” all manufacturing, and correspondingly, tort 

litigation, to foreign jurisdictions. See Brief for Respondents 51–53.

Yet Turkey, where the tire alleged to have caused the accident-in-suit 

was made, is hardly a strange location for a facility that primarily

supplies markets in Europe and Asia. 

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do not here deny, that the type of tire involved in the 

accident, a Goodyear Regional RHS tire manufactured

by Goodyear Turkey, was never distributed in North

Carolina. 

Petitioners moved to dismiss the claims against them 

for want of personal jurisdiction. The trial court denied 

the motion, and the North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed. Acknowledging that the claims neither “related 

to, nor . . . ar[o]se from, [petitioners’] contacts with North

Carolina,” the Court of Appeals confined its analysis to 

“general rather than specific jurisdiction,” which the court 

recognized required a “higher threshold” showing: A defendant must have “continuous and systematic contacts” 

with the forum. Id., at 58, 681 S. E. 2d, at 388 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). That threshold was crossed, 

the court determined, when petitioners placed their tires

“in the stream of interstate commerce without any limitation on the extent to which those tires could be sold in 

North Carolina.” Id., at 67, 681 S. E. 2d, at 394. 

Nothing in the record, the court observed, indicated

that petitioners “took any affirmative action to cause tires 

which they had manufactured to be shipped into North 

Carolina.” Id., at 64, 681 S. E. 2d, at 392. The court 

found, however, that tires made by petitioners reached 

North Carolina as a consequence of a “highly-organized 

distribution process” involving other Goodyear USA subsidiaries. Id., at 67, 681 S. E. 2d, at 394. Petitioners, the 

court noted, made “no attempt to keep these tires from 

reaching the North Carolina market.” Id., at 66, 681 S. E. 

2d, at 393. Indeed, the very tire involved in the accident,

the court observed, conformed to tire standards established by the U. S. Department of Transportation and bore

markings required for sale in the United States. Ibid.2 As 

—————— 

2Such markings do not necessarily show that any of the tires were

destined for sale in the United States. To facilitate trade, the Solicitor 

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further support, the court invoked North Carolina’s “interest in providing a forum in which its citizens are able to

seek redress for [their] injuries,” and noted the hardship

North Carolina plaintiffs would experience “[were they]

required to litigate their claims in France,” a country to

which they have no ties. Id., at 68, 681 S. E. 2d, at 394. 

The North Carolina Supreme Court denied discretionary

review. Brown v. Meter, 364 N. C. 128, 695 S. E. 2d 756 

(2010).

We granted certiorari to decide whether the general 

jurisdiction the North Carolina courts asserted over petitioners is consistent with the Due Process Clause of the 

Fourteenth Amendment. 561 U. S. ___ (2010). 

II 

A 

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment 

sets the outer boundaries of a state tribunal’s authority to

proceed against a defendant. Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U. S. 

186, 207 (1977). The canonical opinion in this area remains International Shoe, 326 U. S. 310, in which we held 

that a State may authorize its courts to exercise personal 

jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant if the defendant

has “certain minimum contacts with [the State] such that 

the maintenance of the suit does not offend ‘traditional 

notions of fair play and substantial justice.’” Id., at 316 

(quoting Meyer, 311 U. S., at 463).

Endeavoring to give specific content to the “fair play and

substantial justice” concept, the Court in International 

Shoe classified cases involving out-of-state corporate 

defendants. First, as in International Shoe itself, jurisdiction unquestionably could be asserted where the corpora-

—————— 

General explained, the United States encourages other countries to

“treat compliance with [Department of Transportation] standards, including through use of DOT markings, as evidence that the products 

are safely manufactured.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 32. 

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tion’s in-state activity is “continuous and systematic” and 

that activity gave rise to the episode-in-suit. 326 U. S., at 

317. Further, the Court observed, the commission of 

certain “single or occasional acts” in a State may be sufficient to render a corporation answerable in that State

with respect to those acts, though not with respect to

matters unrelated to the forum connections. Id., at 318. 

The heading courts today use to encompass these two 

International Shoe categories is “specific jurisdiction.” See 

von Mehren & Trautman 1144–1163. Adjudicatory authority is “specific” when the suit “aris[es] out of or relate[s] 

to the defendant’s contacts with the forum.” Helicopteros, 

466 U. S., at 414, n. 8. 

 International Shoe distinguished from cases that fit 

within the “specific jurisdiction” categories, “instances in 

which the continuous corporate operations within a state 

[are] so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit 

against it on causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct from those activities.” 326 U. S., at 318. 

Adjudicatory authority so grounded is today called “general jurisdiction.” Helicopteros, 466 U. S., at 414, n. 9. For 

an individual, the paradigm forum for the exercise of 

general jurisdiction is the individual’s domicile; for a

corporation, it is an equivalent place, one in which the

corporation is fairly regarded as at home. See Brilmayer

728 (identifying domicile, place of incorporation, and

principal place of business as “paradig[m]” bases for the 

exercise of general jurisdiction). 

Since International Shoe, this Court’s decisions have 

elaborated primarily on circumstances that warrant the 

exercise of specific jurisdiction, particularly in cases involving “single or occasional acts” occurring or having 

their impact within the forum State. As a rule in these 

cases, this Court has inquired whether there was “some 

act by which the defendant purposefully avail[ed] itself of

the privilege of conducting activities within the forum 

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State, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its 

laws.” Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U. S. 235, 253 (1958). See, 

e.g., World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U. S. 

286, 287, 297 (1980) (Oklahoma court may not exercise 

personal jurisdiction “over a nonresident automobile retailer and its wholesale distributor in a products-liability

action, when the defendants’ only connection with Oklahoma is the fact that an automobile sold in New York to 

New York residents became involved in an accident in 

Oklahoma”); Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U. S. 

462, 474–475 (1985) (franchisor headquartered in Florida 

may maintain breach-of-contract action in Florida against 

Michigan franchisees, where agreement contemplated ongoing interactions between franchisees and franchisor’s

headquarters); Asahi Metal Industry Co. v. Superior Court 

of Cal., Solano Cty., 480 U. S. 102, 105 (1987) (Taiwanese 

tire manufacturer settled product liability action brought

in California and sought indemnification there from Japanese valve assembly manufacturer; Japanese company’s

“mere awareness . . . that the components it manufactured, sold, and delivered outside the United States would 

reach the forum State in the stream of commerce” held 

insufficient to permit California court’s adjudication of

Taiwanese company’s cross-complaint); id., at 109 (opinion 

of O’Connor, J.); id., at 116–117 (Brennan, J., concurring

in part and concurring in judgment). See also Twitchell, 

The Myth of General Jurisdiction, 101 Harv. L. Rev. 610,

628 (1988) (in the wake of International Shoe, “specific

jurisdiction has become the centerpiece of modern jurisdiction theory, while general jurisdiction plays a reduced

role”).

In only two decisions postdating International Shoe, 

discussed infra, at 11–13, has this Court considered 

whether an out-of-state corporate defendant’s in-state 

contacts were sufficiently “continuous and systematic” to 

justify the exercise of general jurisdiction over claims 

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unrelated to those contacts: Perkins v. Benguet Consol. 

Mining Co., 342 U. S. 437 (1952) (general jurisdiction

appropriately exercised over Philippine corporation sued

in Ohio, where the company’s affairs were overseen during 

World War II); and Helicopteros, 466 U. S. 408 (helicopter 

owned by Colombian corporation crashed in Peru; survivors of U. S. citizens who died in the crash, the Court 

held, could not maintain wrongful-death actions against the

Colombian corporation in Texas, for the corporation’s

helicopter purchases and purchase-linked activity in

Texas were insufficient to subject it to Texas court’s general jurisdiction). 

B 

To justify the exercise of general jurisdiction over petitioners, the North Carolina courts relied on the petitioners’ placement of their tires in the “stream of commerce.”

See supra, at 5. The stream-of-commerce metaphor has

been invoked frequently in lower court decisions permitting “jurisdiction in products liability cases in which the

product has traveled through an extensive chain of distribution before reaching the ultimate consumer.” 18 W. 

Fletcher, Cyclopedia of the Law of Corporations §8640.40,

p. 133 (rev. ed. 2007). Typically, in such cases, a nonresident defendant, acting outside the forum, places in the

stream of commerce a product that ultimately causes 

harm inside the forum. See generally Dayton, Personal

Jurisdiction and the Stream of Commerce, 7 Rev. Litigation 239, 262–268 (1988) (discussing origins and evolution

of the stream-of-commerce doctrine). 

Many States have enacted long-arm statutes authorizing courts to exercise specific jurisdiction over manufacturers when the events in suit, or some of them, occurred 

within the forum state. For example, the “Local Injury; 

Foreign Act” subsection of North Carolina’s long-arm

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sonal jurisdiction in “any action claiming injury to person

or property within this State arising out of [the defendant’s] act or omission outside this State,” if, “in addition[,] at or about the time of the injury,” ”[p]roducts . . .

manufactured by the defendant were used or consumed,

within this State in the ordinary course of trade.” N. C. 

Gen. Stat. Ann. §1–75.4(4)(b) (Lexis 2009).3 As the North 

Carolina Court of Appeals recognized, this provision of the

State’s long-arm statute “does not apply to this case,” for

both the act alleged to have caused injury (the fabrication

of the allegedly defective tire) and its impact (the accident) 

occurred outside the forum. See 199 N. C. App., at 61, 

n. 6, 681 S. E. 2d, at 390, n. 6.4 

The North Carolina court’s stream-of-commerce analysis

elided the essential difference between case-specific and

all-purpose (general) jurisdiction. Flow of a manufacturer’s products into the forum, we have explained, may 

bolster an affiliation germane to specific jurisdiction. See, 

e.g., World-Wide Volkswagen, 444 U. S., at 297 (where “the

sale of a product . . . is not simply an isolated occurrence,

but arises from the efforts of the manufacturer or distributor to serve . . . the market for its product in [several] 

—————— 

3Cf. D. C. Code §13–423(a)(4) (2001) (providing for specific jurisdiction over defendant who “caus[es] tortious injury in the [forum] by an 

act or omission outside the [forum]” when, in addition, the defendant 

“derives substantial revenue from goods used or consumed . . . in the 

[forum]”). 4The court instead relied on N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. §1–75.4(1)(d), see

199 N. C. App., at 57, 681 S. E. 2d, at 388, which provides for jurisdiction, “whether the claim arises within or without [the] State,” when the

defendant “[i]s engaged in substantial activity within this State,

whether such activity is wholly interstate, intrastate, or otherwise.”

This provision, the North Carolina Supreme Court has held, was “intended to make available to the North Carolina courts the full jurisdictional powers permissible under federal due process.” Dillon v. 

Numismatic Funding Corp., 291 N. C. 674, 676, 231 S. E. 2d 629, 630 

(1977). 

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States, it is not unreasonable to subject it to suit in one 

of those States if its allegedly defective merchandise has 

there been the source of injury to its owner or to others” (emphasis added)). But ties serving to bolster the exercise 

of specific jurisdiction do not warrant a determination

that, based on those ties, the forum has general jurisdiction over a defendant. See, e.g., Stabilisierungsfonds Fur 

Wein v. Kaiser Stuhl Wine Distributors Pty. Ltd., 647 F. 2d 

200, 203, n. 5 (CADC 1981) (defendants’ marketing arrangements, although “adequate to permit litigation of 

claims relating to [their] introduction of . . . wine into

the United States stream of commerce, . . . would not be 

adequate to support general, ‘all purpose’ adjudicatory

authority”).

A corporation’s “continuous activity of some sorts within

a state,” International Shoe instructed, “is not enough to

support the demand that the corporation be amenable to

suits unrelated to that activity.” 326 U. S., at 318. Our 

1952 decision in Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining Co. 

remains “[t]he textbook case of general jurisdiction appropriately exercised over a foreign corporation that has not 

consented to suit in the forum.” Donahue v. Far Eastern 

Air Transport Corp., 652 F. 2d 1032, 1037 (CADC 1981).

Sued in Ohio, the defendant in Perkins was a Philippine

mining corporation that had ceased activities in the Philippines during World War II. To the extent that the company was conducting any business during and immediately after the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, it

was doing so in Ohio: the corporation’s president maintained his office there, kept the company files in that

office, and supervised from the Ohio office “the necessarily

limited wartime activities of the company.” Perkins, 342 

U. S., at 447–448. Although the claim-in-suit did not arise 

in Ohio, this Court ruled that it would not violate due 

process for Ohio to adjudicate the controversy. Ibid.; see 

Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U. S. 770, 779–780, 

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n. 11 (1984) (Ohio’s exercise of general jurisdiction was

permissible in Perkins because “Ohio was the corporation’s 

principal, if temporary, place of business”). 

We next addressed the exercise of general jurisdiction 

over an out-of-state corporation over three decades later,

in Helicopteros. In that case, survivors of United States 

citizens who died in a helicopter crash in Peru instituted 

wrongful-death actions in a Texas state court against the 

owner and operator of the helicopter, a Colombian corporation. The Colombian corporation had no place of business in Texas and was not licensed to do business there. 

“Basically, [the company’s] contacts with Texas consisted

of sending its chief executive officer to Houston for a 

contract-negotiation session; accepting into its New York

bank account checks drawn on a Houston bank; purchasing helicopters, equipment, and training services from [a

Texas enterprise] for substantial sums; and sending personnel to [Texas] for training.” 466 U. S., at 416. These 

links to Texas, we determined, did not “constitute the kind 

of continuous and systematic general business contacts . . . 

found to exist in Perkins,” and were insufficient to support

the exercise of jurisdiction over a claim that neither

“ar[o]se out of . . . no[r] related to” the defendant’s activities in Texas. Id., at 415–416 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). 

Helicopteros concluded that “mere purchases [made in

the forum State], even if occurring at regular intervals, 

are not enough to warrant a State’s assertion of [general] 

jurisdiction over a nonresident corporation in a cause of 

action not related to those purchase transactions.” Id., at 

418. We see no reason to differentiate from the ties to 

Texas held insufficient in Helicopteros, the sales of petitioners’ tires sporadically made in North Carolina through

intermediaries. Under the sprawling view of general 

jurisdiction urged by respondents and embraced by the 

North Carolina Court of Appeals, any substantial manuCase 2:11-cv-00525-CCC -JAD Document 42-1 Filed 07/08/11 Page 15 of 17 PageID: 266
Cite as: 564 U. S. ____ (2011) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

facturer or seller of goods would be amenable to suit, on

any claim for relief, wherever its products are distributed.

But cf. World-Wide Volkswagen, 444 U. S., at 296 (every

seller of chattels does not, by virtue of the sale, “appoint 

the chattel his agent for service of process”).

 Measured against Helicopteros and Perkins, North Carolina is not a forum in which it would be permissible to

subject petitioners to general jurisdiction. Unlike the 

defendant in Perkins, whose sole wartime business activity was conducted in Ohio, petitioners are in no sense at

home in North Carolina. Their attenuated connections to 

the State, see supra, at 4–5, fall far short of the “the continuous and systematic general business contacts” necessary to empower North Carolina to entertain suit against 

them on claims unrelated to anything that connects them

to the State. Helicopteros, 466 U. S., at 416.5 

C 

 Respondents belatedly assert a “single enterprise” theory, asking us to consolidate petitioners’ ties to North 

Carolina with those of Goodyear USA and other Goodyear

entities. See Brief for Respondents 44–50. In effect, 

—————— 

5As earlier noted, see supra, at 6, the North Carolina Court of Appeals invoked the State’s “well-recognized interest in providing a forum

in which its citizens are able to seek redress for injuries that they have

sustained.” 199 N. C. App., at 68, 681 S. E. 2d, at 394. But “[g]eneral

jurisdiction to adjudicate has in [United States] practice never been 

based on the plaintiff’s relationship to the forum. There is nothing in 

[our] law comparable to . . . article 14 of the Civil Code of France (1804)

under which the French nationality of the plaintiff is a sufficient 

ground for jurisdiction.” von Mehren & Trautman 1137; see Clermont 

& Palmer, Exorbitant Jurisdiction, 58 Me. L. Rev. 474, 492–495 (2006)

(French law permitting plaintiff-based jurisdiction is rarely invoked

in the absence of other supporting factors). When a defendant’s act 

outside the forum causes injury in the forum, by contrast, a plaintiff’s

residence in the forum may strengthen the case for the exercise of 

specific jurisdiction. See Calder v. Jones, 465 U. S. 783, 788 (1984); von 

Mehren & Trautman 1167–1173. 

Case 2:11-cv-00525-CCC -JAD Document 42-1 Filed 07/08/11 Page 16 of 17 PageID: 267
14 GOODYEAR DUNLOP TIRES OPERATIONS, S. A. 

v. BROWN 

Opinion of the Court 

respondents would have us pierce Goodyear corporate 

veils, at least for jurisdictional purposes. See Brilmayer &

Paisley, Personal Jurisdiction and Substantive Legal 

Relations: Corporations, Conspiracies, and Agency, 74 Cal.

L. Rev. 1, 14, 29–30 (1986) (merging parent and subsidiary 

for jurisdictional purposes requires an inquiry “comparable to the corporate law question of piercing the corporate 

veil”). But see 199 N. C. App., at 64, 681 S. E. 2d, at 392

(North Carolina Court of Appeals understood that petitioners are “separate corporate entities . . . not directly responsible for the presence in North Carolina of tires that

they had manufactured”). Neither below nor in their brief 

in opposition to the petition for certiorari did respondents

urge disregard of petitioners’ discrete status as subsidiaries and treatment of all Goodyear entities as a “unitary

business,” so that jurisdiction over the parent would draw

in the subsidiaries as well.6 Brief for Respondents 44. 

Respondents have therefore forfeited this contention, and 

we do not address it. This Court’s Rule 15.2; Granite Rock 

Co. v. Teamsters, 561 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 16). 

* * * 

For the reasons stated, the judgment of the North Carolina Court of Appeals is 

Reversed. 

—————— 

6 In the brief they filed in the North Carolina Court of Appeals, respondents stated that petitioners were part of an “integrated worldwide efforts to design, manufacture, market and sell their tires in the 

United States, including in North Carolina.” App. 485 (emphasis 

added). See also Brief in Opposition 18. Read in context, that assertion 

was offered in support of a narrower proposition: The distribution of

petitioners’ tires in North Carolina, respondents maintained, demonstrated petitioners’ own “calculated and deliberate efforts to take

advantage of the North Carolina market.” App. 485. As already 

explained, see supra, at 12–13, even regularly occurring sales of a

product in a State do not justify the exercise of jurisdiction over a claim 

unrelated to those sales. 

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