Case: Norfolk Southern Railway Company v. Robert Willmore Mallory, as Administrator of the Estate of Robert Thurston Mallory, et al., No. 25-1208
Lower Court: Pennsylvania
Docketed: 2026-04-22
Status: Pending
Question Presented: Whether "Pennsylvania's assertion of jurisdiction here—over an out-of-state company in a suit brought by an out-of-state plaintiff on claims wholly unrelated to Pennsylvania—violates" the Constitution, including the Commerce Clause.
On April 17, 2026, Norfolk Southern filed a petition for a writ of certiorari asking the Supreme Court to revisit the constitutional limits of registration-based personal jurisdiction. The respondent has already waived the right to respond, which can sometimes signal either confidence that the petition will be denied or a strategic choice to let the Court act without opposition briefing. The Atlantic Legal Foundation filed an amicus brief the following day.
This case is a sequel to Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. The current petition presses the question of whether Pennsylvania's business registration statute, which conditions registration on consent to general jurisdiction, independently violates the Commerce Clause.
The legal issue is whether a state may condition the right to do business within its borders on consent to suit for claims having no connection to that state, without running afoul of the Commerce Clause’s limits on state interference with interstate commerce. Petitioner Tobias Samuel Loss-Eaton argues that Pennsylvania’s scheme effectively penalizes interstate commerce by forcing out-of-state companies to accept unlimited litigation exposure as the price of market entry. Respondent is represented by Daniel Caleb Levin.
The broader stakes are considerable for multistate corporations. If the Court grants certiorari and rules that registration-based jurisdiction violates the Commerce Clause, it would substantially narrow the reach of similar statutes in other states. The response deadline of May 22, 2026 will be the next date to watch.