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Beyond minimum contacts: The Eleventh Circuit applies Fuld to foreign defendants

8/7/26

By: Robert Scavone Jr.

The Eleventh Circuit’s published decision in Rodriguez v. Imperial Brands, PLC, No. 24-11487 (11th Cir. July 23, 2026), provides the court’s first substantial account of federal personal jurisdiction after the Supreme Court’s decision in Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, 606 U.S. 1 (2025). Rodriguez holds that when jurisdiction over a foreign defendant is asserted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2), the Fifth Amendment does not require the familiar minimum-contacts analysis developed under the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, the constitutional question is whether exercising federal jurisdiction would be reasonable under the circumstances.

The plaintiffs in Rodriguez were U.S. nationals asserting claims under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act against, among others, two British companies: Imperial Brands and WPP. They alleged that the defendants participated in or profited from trafficking in property confiscated by the Cuban government. The district court dismissed the claims for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. Although the case involved a specialized federal statute, the court’s reasoning has broader significance for federal claims against foreign corporations whose alleged conduct occurred principally outside the United States.

Personal jurisdiction in federal court ordinarily requires both statutory authorization for service and compliance with constitutional due process. Rule 4(k)(1)(A), the most common route, generally ties a federal court’s jurisdiction to that of the state in which it sits and therefore implicates the Fourteenth Amendment. Rule 4(k)(2), sometimes called the federal or national long-arm provision, applies to federal claims when the defendant is not subject to jurisdiction in any individual state and the exercise of jurisdiction is consistent with the Constitution and federal law.

Before Fuld, the courts of appeals that addressed the issue generally imported the Fourteenth Amendment’s minimum-contacts framework into the Fifth Amendment context, typically measuring the defendant’s contacts with the United States rather than with any single state. Under that approach, a court applying Rule 4(k)(2) asked whether the defendant had sufficient contacts with the United States as a whole, rather than with an individual state, but otherwise used the familiar minimum-contacts framework. Rodriguez recognizes that Fuld abrogated the Eleventh Circuit’s decisions to the extent they equated the constitutional standards under the two amendments.

Fuld arose from terrorism-related suits against the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority under the Antiterrorism Act. Congress had enacted the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, which deemed those two entities to have consented to personal jurisdiction in Antiterrorism Act cases if they engaged in specified conduct, including certain payments connected to terrorism or certain activities within the United States. The Second Circuit held that exercising jurisdiction would violate due process because its precedent treated Fifth Amendment jurisdiction as subject to the same limits as Fourteenth Amendment jurisdiction. The Supreme Court reversed.

The Court explained that Fourteenth Amendment personal-jurisdiction doctrine serves two distinct interests: fairness to the defendant and interstate federalism. The federalism component prevents one state from exceeding the limits imposed by its position as a coequal sovereign within the federal system. That structural concern does not apply when the relevant sovereign is the United States, which possesses nationwide and extraterritorial authority. The Court therefore held that the Fifth Amendment “does not incorporate the Fourteenth Amendment minimum contacts standard and instead permits a more flexible jurisdictional inquiry commensurate with the Federal Government’s broader sovereign authority.” Fuld, 606 U.S. at 12.

But Fuld did not announce a comprehensive replacement test. The Court emphasized that it was not “delineat[ing] the outer bounds of the Federal Government’s power” to bring foreign defendants into U.S. courts. Id. at 14. It held more narrowly that the statute before it was sufficiently targeted: it applied to a narrow category of claims, identified two particular foreign entities, tied jurisdiction to specified conduct, advanced substantial federal foreign-policy interests, and gave the defendants clear notice of the jurisdictional consequences of their conduct. The Court also assumed, without definitively deciding, that the Fifth Amendment may require a case-specific reasonableness inquiry examining the burden on the defendant, the sovereign’s interest, and the plaintiff’s interest in obtaining relief.

Rodriguez extends Fuld beyond a statute expressly authorizing jurisdiction. The defendants argued that Fuld was limited to cases proceeding under Rule 4(k)(1)(C), which applies when a federal statute authorizes service. The Eleventh Circuit disagreed, holding that Fuld applies equally to Rule 4(k)(2) because both provisions implicate the Fifth Amendment rather than the Fourteenth. The court also rejected an effort to preserve a nationwide minimum-contacts requirement through Rule 4(k)(2)’s advisory committee notes. The Rule’s text requires consistency with the Constitution; after Fuld, the Fifth Amendment does not impose a formal minimum-contacts requirement. Rodriguez, slip op. at 20–22.

The plaintiffs nevertheless lost under the more flexible standard. Applying the three reasonableness considerations identified in Fuld, the Eleventh Circuit recognized that the plaintiffs had a strong interest in obtaining relief and that the United States had an interest in providing a forum for American claimants. But the federal interest was less compelling than in Fuld. Unlike the narrowly tailored statute at issue there, the Helms-Burton Act potentially imposes liability on any person who traffics in confiscated property, whether that person’s conduct has a close relationship to the United States. Rodriguez, slip op. at 23–25.

The burden on the defendants proved decisive. Neither British company had clear statutory notice that its alleged conduct would subject it to suit in the United States; neither was alleged to have engaged directly in claim-related conduct bearing a meaningful relationship to this country; and neither had a sufficiently significant U.S. presence. The court also noted the practical burdens of transatlantic litigation and the complications created by British laws restricting compliance with Helms-Burton litigation. Rodriguez, slip op. at 25–31. It ultimately held that subjecting either company to U.S. jurisdiction would “impose an unreasonable burden on both companies.” Id. at 31.

For Fifth Amendment cases, the immediate consequence is clear: lawyers should no longer treat “national contacts” as the complete constitutional test. Contacts with the United States remain highly relevant, but they now operate as evidence bearing on notice, burden, meaningful connection, sovereign interests, and overall reasonableness rather than as elements of a formal International Shoe analysis. Plaintiffs will emphasize federal interests, congressional judgments, statutory notice, U.S.-related predicate conduct, and the lack of an alternative forum. Foreign defendants will emphasize the absence of clear jurisdictional authorization, overseas conduct, limited U.S. presence, foreign-law conflicts, corporate separateness, and the practical burdens of litigating here.

The more difficult question is whether Fuld will affect Fourteenth Amendment analysis. Formally, it should not. Fuld did not question International Shoe or the Supreme Court’s modern general- and specific-jurisdiction cases. Instead, it distinguished the Fifth Amendment precisely because Fourteenth Amendment doctrine protects interstate federalism in addition to individual fairness. State courts—and federal courts proceeding under Rule 4(k)(1)(A)—remain governed by the existing Fourteenth Amendment framework, including minimum contacts and, in specific-jurisdiction cases, purposeful availment and the requirement that the dispute arises out of or relates to the defendant’s forum contacts.

Still, some doctrinal cross-pollination is possible. In a footnote, the Eleventh Circuit observed that because Fuld makes Fifth Amendment jurisdiction more forgiving, one might argue that the Fourteenth Amendment’s claim-relatedness requirement should not carry over into Fifth Amendment cases. The court responded, “Perhaps,” but declined to announce that rule without clearer direction from the Supreme Court. Rodriguez, slip op. at 29 n.5. That footnote highlights the questions courts will now confront: Which parts of traditional personal-jurisdiction doctrine protect interstate federalism, which protect defendants against unfairness, and which apply under both amendments?

The likely near-term effect is not that Fuld will dilute Fourteenth Amendment minimum contacts. The Supreme Court has repeatedly treated those requirements as structural limits on state sovereign authority, not simply as rough measures of litigation convenience. But decisions applying Fuld may influence the language and emphasis of Fourteenth Amendment cases. As federal courts develop a free-standing reasonableness inquiry, litigants may increasingly use those decisions to sharpen arguments about notice, practical burden, claim relatedness, and the relative interests of the parties and sovereign. The two doctrines should remain distinct, but they will develop alongside one another and may borrow from the same vocabulary.

Rodriguez is therefore significant less because it makes jurisdiction over foreign defendants uniformly easier or harder than because it changes the questions courts must ask. The Fifth Amendment no longer demands a formal nationwide minimum-contacts showing, but it is not a jurisdictional blank check. The Eleventh Circuit’s first application of Fuld produced dismissal, confirming that a flexible reasonableness standard can provide foreign corporate defendants with substantial protection—particularly where the governing statute gives no clear jurisdictional notice, the relevant conduct lacks a meaningful U.S. connection, and the defendant has no significant presence in this country.

For more information on this topic contact Robert Scavone Jr. at robert.scavone@fmglaw.com or your local FMG attorney.

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