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Interstate Pollution And The Quandary Of Personal Jurisdiction, Cedar H. Hobbs

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Current Supreme Court personal jurisdiction analysis does not clearly support a finding of personal jurisdiction for out of state polluters in an interstate toxic tort. Still, some courts, including the Ninth Circuit, have attempted to find personal jurisdiction in these cases, but in doing so have employed tenuous analysis that can result in inconsistent case law. This Note argues that there is a better analytical framework which reemphasizes the role played by territorial borders in personal jurisdictional analysis. Through employing this framework, courts can find personal jurisdiction in interstate toxic torts while also preserving analytically consistent case law.