Bulldog Investors General Partnership v. Galvin

Docket: 11-954
Issue(s): (1) Whether a state ban on speech by an issuer of unregistered securities to members of the public based upon their financial status violates the First Amendment, where the speech is concededly truthful and non-misleading, and where the state characterizes the speech ban as a “disclosure rule” to further an objective that federal law does not permit; and (2) whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment permits a forum state to exercise personal jurisdiction over a non-resident business solely because the business operated a website accessible from the state (and from any other location in the world) and sent a single concededly truthful and non-misleading e-mail responding to a resident’s inquiry, when the business did not enter (and, based upon these communications, could not have entered) into a transaction with the resident.

Certiorari stage documents:

• Opinion below (Mass. S. Jud. Ct.)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Amicus brief of Cato Institute et al.
• Reply of petitioners