On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a major decision on the scope of personal jurisdiction for businesses, providing clarity on where a corporation can expect to be haled into court and potentially limiting forum-shopping.

The decision can offer legal departments welcome predictability and limits when it comes to where companies should be expected to go on the defensive, according to attorneys, including a prominent in-house lawyer from GlaxoSmithKline.

The case, Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California, involves a group of more than 600 plaintiffs, most of whom are not from California, who sued in California state court, claiming that the pharmaceutical giant's blood-thinning drug Plavix damaged their health. For a case such as this one, two types of personal jurisdiction are typically considered: general and specific. General jurisdiction for a corporation has been interpreted to mean where it is “at home.” Specific jurisdiction, on the other hand, relates to a defendant's contacts with a particular forum and requires a connection between the forum and the claims at issue in litigation.