Sued in New York when your business is somewhere else.

New York usually reaches an out-of-state defendant through CPLR 302, which lists four kinds of conduct. Your claim must arise from the conduct relied on, and the exercise of jurisdiction must independently satisfy due process. Fail either test and the complaint is dismissible under CPLR 3211(a)(8). Consent and waiver are separate routes in.

Can a New York court hear a case against me when my business is somewhere else?

A New York court needs a basis before it can decide a claim against an out-of-state defendant. For a non-domiciliary, that basis is usually CPLR 302. Consent by contract or waiver can supply it instead. The claim pleaded must arise from the conduct relied on. No qualifying conduct means no jurisdiction.

There are two gates, and the plaintiff must get through both.

• The statutory gate. Does your conduct fit an enumerated act in CPLR 302(a), and does this claim arise from it?
• The constitutional gate. Does due process permit New York to exercise power over you?

General jurisdiction is narrower. CPLR 301 carries forward New York’s traditional bases, but the Supreme Court has confined general jurisdiction over a corporation to its place of incorporation, its principal place of business, and the exceptional case where it is essentially at home elsewhere. Long-arm jurisdiction is claim-specific, and an appearance does not extend it to unrelated claims.

Law: CPLR 301; CPLR 302(a); CPLR 302(c); Daimler AG v Bauman, 571 US 117 (2014).

What does “transacting business” in New York mean under CPLR 302(a)(1)?

Transacting business under CPLR 302(a)(1) means you projected yourself into New York on your own initiative to engage in a purposeful business transaction here. Physical presence is not required. The claim must also bear an articulable nexus or a substantial relationship to that New York activity. Both halves are required.

The first half asks whether you, on your own initiative, projected yourself into New York for a sustained and substantial transaction of business. The plaintiff carries the burden on both halves.

Law: CPLR 302(a)(1); D&R Global Selections, S.L. v Bodega Olegario Falcon Pineiro, 29 NY3d 292, 297-299 (2017); Rushaid v Pictet & Cie, 28 NY3d 316, 323 (2016); Paterno v Laser Spine Inst., 24 NY3d 370, 377 (2014); McGowan v Smith, 52 NY2d 268, 272 (1981); Kreutter v McFadden Oil Corp., 71 NY2d 460, 467 (1988).

Never setting foot here does not save you. California clients telephoned a New York lawyer, retained him, and communicated with him here by telephone, fax, mail, and e-mail. The Court of Appeals held that the retention and continuing relationship were transacting business.

Law: Fischbarg v Doucet, 9 NY3d 375 (2007).

Repetition matters. A foreign bank’s repeated, deliberate use of a New York correspondent account satisfied CPLR 302(a)(1) and bore an articulable nexus to the claims pleaded. The Court of Appeals, answering certified questions, left due process to the federal court. Occasional or unintended use would not do.

Electronic contact counts when aimed here, but volume and purpose do the work. A Michigan manufacturer sold two drones to a New York state university for delivery in Madagascar. Both courts below said no. The Court of Appeals reversed: its chief executive projected himself into New York by telephone and e-mail over roughly two years and visited the state.

Law: Licci v Lebanese Can. Bank, SAL, 20 NY3d 327 (2012); State of New York v Vayu, Inc., 39 NY3d 330, 332-336 (2023).

Physical presence is not the test. Aim is the test. You can transact business in New York from a desk two thousand miles away, and you can ship goods here for years without transacting business.

I only signed a contract to send goods into New York. Is that enough?

CPLR 302(a)(1) has a second, separate ground: contracting anywhere to supply goods or services in New York. You can fall within it without entering the state. The claim must still arise from that contract. Where the goods were made, sold, and distributed abroad and there was no New York office or agent, the prong fails.

An Italian component manufacturer made, sold, and distributed its goods in Italy, with no New York office or agent. The Second Department held that the plaintiff showed neither purposeful availment under CPLR 302(a)(1) nor any basis under CPLR 302(a)(3), so service was invalid and the CPLR 3211(a)(8) cross motion should have been granted. Dismissible.

Law: Economy Premier Assur. Co. v Miflex 2 S.p.A., 212 AD3d 775, 776 (2d Dept 2023).

Can I be sued in New York for something that happened in another state?

Yes, but the route matters. CPLR 302(a)(2) reaches a tortious act committed in New York, in person or through an agent. CPLR 302(a)(3) reaches a tortious act committed outside New York that causes injury inside New York, and only if an added revenue or expectation showing is made. Both exclude defamation.

CPLR 302(a)(3) is the prong plaintiffs stretch. It requires injury to person or property within the state, plus one of the two additional showings set out in the table below. Read subparagraph (ii) as a conjunction: foreseeable New York consequences alone are not enough, and substantial interstate revenue alone is not enough.

Test the injury element before arguing about revenue. The situs of injury is where the event giving rise to it occurred, not where the economic damage is later felt, so lost profits suffered here only because the plaintiff is domiciled here are not an in-state injury. Online infringement of a copyrighted work is a narrow exception.

Law: CPLR 302(a)(2); CPLR 302(a)(3)(i)-(ii); LaMarca v Pak-Mor Mfg. Co., 95 NY2d 210, 214 (2000); Fantis Foods v Standard Importing Co., 49 NY2d 317 (1980); Penguin Group (USA) Inc. v American Buddha, 16 NY3d 295 (2011).

Three subdivisions sit outside the commercial merits: 302(b), matrimonial support demands; 302(c), the effect of an appearance; 302(d), foreign defamation judgments.

Does the Constitution protect me even if the long-arm statute reaches my conduct?

Due process is a second and independent limit. Satisfying CPLR 302 is not the end of the analysis. You must have certain minimum contacts with New York, and the suit must not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice. A statutory fit plus no purposeful availment still means dismissal.

The inquiry is separate, and it does real work. Contacts were missing where an Ohio dealer sold a firearm in Ohio to an Ohio buyer and the gun later reached New York. They were present where a Spanish winery promoted its wine here, solicited a New York distributor, and sold to it. Passive awareness that a product might arrive here is different.

Law: Williams v Beemiller, Inc., 33 NY3d 523, 528 (2019); LaMarca v Pak-Mor Mfg. Co., 95 NY2d 210, 216 (2000); D&R Global Selections, S.L. v Bodega Olegario Falcon Pineiro, 29 NY3d 292 (2017).

Does registering to do business in New York mean I agreed to be sued here?

No. Registering to do business in New York and designating an in-state agent is consent to accept service of process. It is not consent to general jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals held that in 2021. The Supreme Court has since held that a state may write such consent into its registration statute, and New York has not.

The complaint may say, in one conclusory line, that you are subject to jurisdiction because you are authorized to do business here. Standing alone, that states a service proposition, not a jurisdictional one. Two legislative attempts to condition registration on consent were passed and vetoed.

Law: Aybar v Aybar, 37 NY3d 274 (2021); Mallory v Norfolk Southern Ry. Co., 600 US 122 (2023).

The contract says New York courts. Is the long-arm argument gone?

Often, yes. If you agreed in the contract to submit to New York courts, that consent supplies jurisdiction and the long-arm analysis drops out. General Obligations Law 5-1402 goes further for large deals, letting a plaintiff sue you here on a qualifying New York law contract. Read the clause and the claim together.

Read 5-1402 as three conditions plus a connection requirement. First, a choice of New York law made pursuant to 5-1401, which itself reaches only transactions of not less than two hundred fifty thousand dollars and excludes labor and personal services contracts. Second, a transaction covering in the aggregate not less than one million dollars. Third, an express agreement to submit to New York jurisdiction. The action must arise out of or relate to that contract.

Law: General Obligations Law 5-1402(1); General Obligations Law 5-1401.

So read the document, not the complaint. If the 2022 credit agreement carries the consent clause but the claim arises out of a separate 2023 services addendum without one, that path does not cover the claim. Below one million dollars, 5-1402 is not the plaintiff’s route, though an express submission clause can still bind you as ordinary contractual consent. A New York law clause with no jurisdiction clause sends the plaintiff back to CPLR 302 and due process.

How do I raise lack of personal jurisdiction, and how do I lose it by accident?

Lack of personal jurisdiction is raised under CPLR 3211(a)(8), either by a pre-answer motion or as an objection in the answer. CPLR 3211(e) sets the trap. Move to dismiss on any other ground in subdivision (a) without including the jurisdictional objection, and the objection is waived. Only one such motion is permitted.

The waiver mechanics are unforgiving.

• An appearance counts. You appear by serving an answer or notice of appearance, or by moving in a way that extends your time to answer. An appearance equals personal service of the summons unless the objection is asserted by motion or in the answer.
• A bare notice of appearance is not automatically fatal, but unless the objection is then asserted by motion or in the answer, the appearance supplies what service would have supplied.
• Moving to dismiss on other grounds first is fatal. Move under subdivision (a) and omit the (a)(8) objection, and it is gone.
• Defective service has its own clock. Object to service in a pleading rather than by motion and you must move for judgment on that ground within sixty days after you serve that pleading, absent an undue hardship extension.

Law: CPLR 3211(a)(8); CPLR 3211(e); CPLR 320(a); CPLR 320(b).

Separate the two objections: no power over you, versus papers not properly served. Both live under CPLR 3211(a)(8); only the service objection carries the sixty-day deadline.

A jurisdictional defense is rarely lost because a judge rejected it. It is lost because the papers filed first did not contain it.

Can the plaintiff get discovery just to look for jurisdiction?

Sometimes. CPLR 3211(d) lets a court deny your motion, permit the objection to be raised in a responsive pleading, or order a continuance for affidavits or disclosure, if the plaintiff shows that facts essential to justify opposition may exist but cannot then be stated. That relief is discretionary.

Plan for it. An affidavit that denies, item by item, a New York office, employees, accounts, property, and solicitation, and that names where the document was negotiated and performed, is hard to answer with a request to go looking.

Law: CPLR 3211(d).

What should you do before your response deadline?

You have a short window and a narrow path. The objection must be preserved either by a CPLR 3211(a)(8) motion or by an answer asserting it, and it must not be omitted from any earlier motion under subdivision (a). Before that paper is filed, gather the facts and name the operative documents.

• Let no notice of appearance go out until counsel has decided how the objection will be preserved.
• Calendar two dates: your deadline to respond, and the sixty-day deadline running from your service of any pleading that objects to service.
• Collect the contract, every amendment, and any guaranty. Confirm which document carries the New York law clause and which carries the submission-to-jurisdiction clause. Often they are not the same.
• Write down your New York footprint: offices, employees, agents, property, accounts, registrations, revenue attributable to New York, and visits connected to this dispute.
• Keep the negotiation record and the service papers.

This motion is won on documents and dates, not on indignation about a distant court. Prencipe International works the analysis in the order the statute requires: the enumerated act, the nexus, due process, then consent if a clause exists.