Reference no: EM131741630

Two teenagers residing in North Carolina were fatally injured when the bus upon which they were riding overturned on a roadway outside of Paris, France. The parents of the decedents brought a lawsuit in North Carolina state court against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and its subsidiaries based in Luxembourg, Turkey and France alleging that the accident was caused by negligent design and production of the bus tires. The subsidiaries moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The plaintiffs alleged that North Carolina courts had personal jurisdiction due to the fact that the subsidiaries placed their tires into the stream of commerce and some of these tires ended up in North Carolina. The subsidiaries alleged that there was no personal jurisdiction as the mere placement of a product in the stream of commerce is an insufficient basis for the assertion of personal jurisdiction especially when the accident had no connection with the forum other than the residence of the decedents. Additionally, the mere placement of tires into the stream of commerce did not constitute a continuous and systematic presence in North Carolina as to subject the subsidiaries to personal jurisdiction. The North Carolina state courts disagreed and exercised personal jurisdiction over the subsidiaries. The subsidiaries appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Do the North Carolina courts have personal jurisdiction over Goodyear's foreign subsidiaries arising from the accident in France? Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 131 S. Ct. 2846 (2011).