California courts continue to find ways to exercise personal
jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants, even when there is
little or no dispute that the Constitution and the United States
Supreme Court's opinion in Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co. v.
Superior Court do not permit it. "Resistance" is
probably too strong a word, insofar as it calls up images of
barricades in the streets or some other organized effort to thwart
authority. Or maybe it isn't. "Defiance" maybe? We
don't know, but whatever you call it, there is an unmistakable
inclination on the part of California's courts—including
in the now-reversed California Supreme Court opinion in the
BMS case itself—to hold out-of-state defendants to
answer, even to plaintiffs who have no connection with California
either.
