As the Supreme Court’s 2022-23 term neared its conclusion, the Court issued an important personal jurisdiction decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. By a five to four vote, the Court rejected a Due Process Clause challenge to Pennsylvania’s corporate registration statute. In Mallory, this meant upholding a Pennsylvania court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over a Virginia corporation that did business in Pennsylvania when the corporation was sued by a Virginia citizen for injuries that, he alleged, were caused by the corporation’s conduct outside of Pennsylvania.
Ashley Keller represented Robert Mallory, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, in the Supreme Court. In this podcast, Keller discusses with Associate Dean Rodger Citron how he came to take the case, his strategy for getting the Supreme Court to grant certiorari and presenting original public meaning (or originalist) arguments in defense of the Pennsylvania statute, and why he was surprised that Justice Gorsuch ended up drafting the Court’s plurality opinion. As Keller explains, Mallory is an important case for a number of reasons, including the fact that it shows that plaintiffs may array original public meaning arguments to support their view of the law.
Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.
Our guest today is Ashley Keller, Esq.
Ashley Keller
Ashley Keller is one of the founding Partners of Keller Postman LLC. Among other things, Keller is one of the leaders of the firm’s national product-liability practice. He leverages his ability to detangle complex concepts and develop novel legal theories to support individual client matters and as counsel on numerous product-liability multi-district litigation matters. He chairs the plaintiffs’ Law & Briefing Committee in the Zantac (Ranitidine) Product Liability MDL in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before launching Keller Postman, Keller co-founded the litigation finance firm Gerchen Keller Capital, which grew to more than $1.3 billion in assets under management. Prior to that, Keller was a partner at Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP, where he handled various trial and appellate matters involving multi-billion-dollar securities and patent cases, contract disputes, mass torts, and class actions.
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