Substantive Interests and the Jurisdiction of State Courts

Pennoyer indeed is dead. The primitive ritual of service of process could not survive as a general solution to the problem of state power over individuals. Committed as we are to the idea that the judicial power should be exercised in a manner that is responsive to the common welfare, we could not suffer the limits of power to be determined irrationally by the random success of process servers. Offering only the virtues of simplicity and economy, the ritualistic method had to yield in order to make the judicial power a sharper and more effective tool with which to pursue our common goals. Although it is therefore desirable to put the ghost to rest, a word of caution seems to be timely.