Court Opinion

ID: 9431366
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:32:08.712843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:54.863044
License: Public Domain

Justice Scalia,
concurring in the judgment.
I cannot confidently assess whether the Court’s evaluation and balancing of interests in this case is right or wrong. Although the Court labels the effect of exposure to the general jurisdiction of Ohio’s courts “a significant burden” on commerce, I am not sure why that is. In precise terms, it is the burden of defending in Ohio (rather than some other forum) any lawsuit having all of the following features: (1) the plaintiff desires to bring it in Ohio, (2) it has so little connection to Ohio that service could not otherwise be made under Ohio’s long-arm statute, and (3) it has a great enough connection to Ohio that it is not subject to dismissal on forum non con-veniens grounds. The record before us supplies no indication as to how many suits fit this description (even the *896present suit is not an example since appellee Midwesco Enterprises was subject to long-arm service, ante, at 894), and frankly I have no idea how one would go about estimating the number. It may well be “significant,” but for all we know it is “negligible.”
A person or firm that takes the other alternative, by declining to appoint a general agent for service; will remain theoretically subject to suit in Ohio (as the Court says) “in perpetuity” — at least as far as the statute of limitations is concerned. But again, I do not know how we assess how significant a burden this is, unless anything that is theoretically perpetual must be significant. It seems very unlikely that anyone would intentionally wait to sue later rather than sooner — not only because the prospective defendant may die or dissolve, but also because prejudgment interest is normally not awarded, and the staleness of evidence generally harms the party with the burden of proof. The likelihood of an unintentionally delayed suit brought under this provision that could not be brought without it seems not enormously large. Moreover, whatever the likelihood is, it does not seem terribly plausible that any real-world deterrent effect on interstate transactions will be produced by the incremental cost of having to defend a delayed suit rather than a timely suit. But the point is, it seems to me we can do no more than speculate.
On the other side of the scale, the Court considers the benefit of the Ohio scheme to local interests. These are, presumably, to enable the preservation of claims against defendants who have placed themselves beyond the personal jurisdiction of Ohio courts, and (by encouraging appointment of an agent) to facilitate service upon out-of-state defendants who might otherwise be difficult to locate. See G. D. Searle & Co. v. Cohn, 455 U. S. 404, 410 (1982) (it is “a reasonable assumption that unrepresented foreign corporations, as a general rule, may not be so easy to find and serve”). We have no way of knowing how often these ends are in fact achieved, *897and the Court thus says little about them except to call them “an important factor to consider.” Ante, at 893.
Having evaluated the interests on both sides as roughly as this, the Court then proceeds to judge which is more important. This process is ordinarily called “balancing,” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 142 (1970), but the scale analogy is not really appropriate, since the interests on both sides are incommensurate. It is more like judging whether a particular line is longer than a particular rock is heavy. All I am really persuaded of by the Court’s opinion is that the burdens the Court labels “significant” are more determinative of its decision than the benefits it labels “important.” Were it not for the brief implication that there is here a discrimination unjustified by any state interest, see ante, at 894, I suggest an opinion could as persuasively have been written coming out the opposite way. We sometimes make similar “balancing” judgments in determining how far the needs of the State can intrude upon the liberties of the individual, see, e. g., Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 324 (1988), but that is of the essence of the courts’ function as the nonpolitical branch. Weighing the governmental interests of a State against the needs of interstate commerce is, by contrast, a task squarely within the responsibility of Congress, see U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3, and “ill suited to the judicial function.” CTS Corp. v. Dynamics Corp. of America, 481 U. S. 69, 95 (1987) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
I would therefore abandon the “balancing” approach to these negative Commerce Clause cases, first explicitly adopted 18 years ago in Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., supra, and leave essentially legislative judgments to the Congress. Issues already decided I would leave untouched, but would adopt for the future an analysis more appropriate to our role and our abilities. This does no damage to the interests protected by the doctrine of stare decisis. Since the outcome of any particular still-undecided issue under the current *898methodolgy is in my view not predictable — except within the broad range that would in any event come out the same way under the test I would apply — no expectations can possibly be upset. To the contrary, the ultimate objective of the rule of stare decisis will be furthered. Because the outcome of the test I would apply is considerably more clear, confident expectations will more readily be able to be entertained.
In my view, a state statute is invalid under the Commerce Clause if, and only if, it accords discriminatory treatment to interstate commerce in a respect not required to achieve a lawful state purpose. When such a validating purpose exists, it is for Congress and not us to determine it is not significant enough to justify the burden on commerce. The Ohio tolling statute, Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2305.15 (Supp. 1987), is on its face discriminatory because it applies only to out-of-state corporations. That facial discrimination cannot be justified on the basis that “it advances a legitimate local purpose that cannot be adequately served by reasonable nondiscriminatory alternatives,” New Energy Co. of Indiana v. Limbach, ante, at 278. A tolling statute that operated only against persons beyond the reach of Ohio’s long-arm statute, or against all persons that could not be found for mail service, would be narrowly tailored to advance the legitimate purpose of preserving claims; but the present statute extends the time for suit even against corporations which (like Midwesco Enterprises) are fully suable within Ohio, and readily reachable through the mails.
Because the present statute discriminates against interstate commerce by applying a disadvantageous rule against nonresidents for no valid state purpose that requires such a rule, I concur in the judgment that the Ohio statute violates the Commerce Clause.