A special appearance allows a person to challenge a court’s personal jurisdiction without submitting to it. Personal jurisdiction can be established through physical presence, residence, or consent. A special appearance can be used to argue against jurisdiction without implying consent.
A special appearance is a concept within the United States federal rules of civil procedure that permits a person served with a summons to appear in a judicial proceeding for the specific purpose of challenging the party’s extension of personal jurisdiction of the court. By contesting that jurisdiction in a special appearance, the party contests the court’s right to hear the case against him on the basis of a lack of personal jurisdiction. If the argument put forward in the special appearance is effective, the court will have to drop the case.
Personal jurisdiction refers to the right of a court to hear a case based on certain qualifications regarding the court and the litigant. This type of jurisdiction is usually asserted in one of three ways. The first is physical presence at the time of service, generally even if the presence within the jurisdiction is temporary. Second, personal jurisdiction can be invoked if the party resides within the geographic area of the court’s jurisdiction. Finally, any party may consent to the personal jurisdiction of a court seeking to assert its personal jurisdiction over him, even if he does not reside within the geographic area that constitutes that court’s jurisdiction.
Normally, a person submits to personal jurisdiction by physically entering the jurisdiction. A special appearance is an appearance by a party within the jurisdiction of a court who is conditioned not to submit to that jurisdiction. Federal rules of civil procedure permit this as it gives the party the opportunity to argue that the court should not be able to assert jurisdiction over him or her without implying consent to the assertion by physically entering the jurisdiction, as it normally would. the case.
For example, if a man living in Massachusetts receives a subpoena in the mail stating that he must appear in a Florida court, he may wish to challenge that court’s claim of jurisdiction over him. To do so, he may have to appear in court, which presents a problem, as setting foot in Florida would validly submit him to the jurisdiction of the Florida courts. By making a special appearance, he can enter the state with the sole intention of appearing in court to argue that he cannot be summoned to the Florida courts because they have no personal jurisdiction over him.
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