On October 7, 2021, the Center for Litigation and Courts filed an amicus brief in Canaday v. Anthem Companies, a case pending in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case involves a wage-and-hour collective action brought in the Western District of Tennessee by a Tennessee employee against Anthem. As permitted by the Fair Labor and Standards Act, other employees, including some from outside of Tennessee, filed written consents with the district court to join the collective action. A divided panel of the Sixth Circuit held that the the territorial limits in Rule 4(k)(1)(A) prevent the district court from exercising personal jurisdiction over Anthem with respect to those out-of-state employees.
The Center filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiff’s petition for rehearing en banc. The Rules Enabling Act allows rules of court–like Rule 4(k)(1)(A)–to regulate only “practice and procedure.” But the panel’s construction of Rule 4(k)(1)(A) as limiting personal jurisdiction directly transforms Rule 4(k)(1)(A) from a rule regulating the practice and procedure of service into a rule that, in this case, “really regulates” personal jurisdiction. The Center’s amicus brief argues that Rule 4(k)(1)(A), construed this way, would violate the Rules Enabling Act.
