Given the number of blockbuster opinions that came out in the waning days of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022-23 term, the court's Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway decision may have slipped beneath the radar for many practitioners. Its holding that a plaintiff whose cause of action did not arise in Pennsylvania could sue a corporate entity that did not have Pennsylvania citizenship in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas unsettles decades of personal jurisdiction jurisprudence. The ripple effects of Mallory will be felt across many areas of law, including wage and hour.

The 'Mallory' Decision

Robert Mallory was employed by Norfolk Southern Railway Co. as a freight-car mechanic, first in Ohio and later in Virginia. Mallory alleged that while employed he sprayed boxcar pipes with asbestos and handled other chemicals. After he stopped working for Norfolk Southern, Mallory moved to Pennsylvania and then to Virginia. Following a cancer diagnosis, which Mallory ascribed to his work at Norfolk Southern, and while living in Virginia, Mallory sued Norfolk Southern under the Federal Employers' Liability Act in the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County. Norfolk Southern argued that because Mallory's alleged exposure occurred in Ohio and Virginia, and it was incorporated and had its headquarters in Virginia, that a Pennsylvania court could not exercise personal jurisdiction under the 14th Amendment's due process clause.