Amicus Curiae Brief — Mead Johnson & Company, LLC, et al., Petitioners v. Clarissa Greear, Individually and on Behalf of Her Minor Child B. H., et al.

No. 26-29

In the

Supreme Court of the United States

MEAD JOHNSON & COMPANY, LLC AND

MEAD JOHNSON NUTRITION COMPANY,

Petitioners,

v.

CLARISSA GREEAR, ON BEHALF OF HERSELF

AND HER MINOR CHILD B.H., et al.,

Respondents.

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the

Illinois Appellate Court, Fifth District

BRIEF OF ATLANTIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

AND FEDERATION OF DEFENSE &

CORPORATE COUNSEL AS AMICI CURIAE

IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

Lawrence S. Ebner

Counsel of Record

Atlantic Legal Foundation

1701 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 872-0011

lawrence.ebner@atlanticlegal.org

Counsel for Amici Curiae

121160

(800) 274-3321 • (800) 359-6859

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ....................................... ii

INTEREST OF THE AMICI CURIAE........................ 1

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ..................................... 3

ARGUMENT………………………………………………5

The Court Should Grant Certiorari To Reaffirm and

Enforce Its Personal-Jurisdiction Principles and

Thereby Curb Abusive Forum Shopping…………….. 5

A. Plaintiff-side forum shopping in product liability

litigation undermines the fairness of the civil

justice system………………………………………....5

B. Lax enforcement of personal-jurisdiction principles

impairs interstate federalism……………………..14

CONCLUSION…………………………………………..16

ii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

Cases

Atl. Marine Constr. Co. v. U.S. Dist. Ct.,

571 U.S. 49 (2013) ................................................ 11

Berk v. Choy,

607 U.S. 187 (2026) .............................................. 10

BNSF Ry. Co. v. Tyrrell,

581 U.S. 402 (2017) .......................................... 3, 12

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Super. Ct. of Cal.,

582 U.S. 255 (2017) .................................... 3, 11, 15

Daimler AG v. Bauman,

571 U.S. 117 (2014) .......................................... 3, 12

Dawdy v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 797 N.E.2d 687

(Ill. 2003) .............................................................. 12

Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins,

304 U.S. 64 (1938) ................................................ 10

Ford Motor Co. v. Mont. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 592

U.S. 351 (2021) .................................... .3, 14, 11, 15

Franchise Tax Bd. v. Hyatt,

587 U.S. 230 (2019) .............................................. 15

iii

Goodyear Dunlop Tires Ops., S.A. v. Brown,

564 U.S. 915 (2011) .......................................... 3, 12

Great Lakes Ins. SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co.,

LLC,

601 U.S. 65 (2024) ................................................ 11

Hanna v. Plumer,

380 U.S. 460 (1965) .............................................. 12

International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310

(1945). ..................................................................... 5

Labrador v. Poe,

144 S. Ct. 921 (2024) ............................................ 10

Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co.,

600 U.S. 122 (2023) .............................................. 15

Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.,

572 U.S. 663 (2014) .............................................. 11

Shady Grove Orthopedic Assocs., P.A. v.

Allstate Ins. Co., 559 U.S. 393 (2010) .................. 12

Southland Corp. v. Keating,

465 U.S. 1 (1984) .................................................. 12

Trump v. CASA, Inc.,

606 U.S. 831 (2025) .............................................. 10

United States v. Texas,

599 U.S. 670 (2023) .............................................. 10

iv

Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar,

575 U.S. 433 (2015) .............................................. 11

World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson,

444 U.S. 286 (1980) .............................................. 15

Other Authorities

A. Benjamin Spencer, Jurisdiction to Adjudicate:

A Revised Analysis,

73 U. Chi. L. Rev. 616 (2006) ............................... 15

Am. Tort Reform Found., Judicial Hellholes

2025–2026............................................... 7, 9, 13, 14

Andrew J. Pincus et al., Personal Jurisdiction After

Mallory, ILR Briefly (U.S. Chamber of Com. Inst. for

Legal Reform, Nov. 16, 2023)………………………..8, 9

Anthony J. Gaughan, The Unsettled State of

Corporate General Personal Jurisdiction,

103 Neb. L. Rev. 131 (2024) ................................. 12

Illinois Judicial Elections, Ballotpedia,

https://perma.cc/2U82-N7RU (last visited June 28,

2026) ..................................................................... 14

Cynthia L. Fountaine, “Don’t Come Around Here No

More”: Narrowing Personal Jurisdiction Over

Non-Resident Corporations in Illinois,

42 S. Ill. U. L.J. 593 (2018) .................................... 9

Daniel Klerman, Rethinking Personal Jurisdiction,

6 J. Legal Analysis 245 (2014). ........................ 9, 10

v

Daniel Klerman & Greg Reilly, Forum Selling,

89 S. Cal. L. Rev. 241 (2016).................................. 9

Forum Shopping, Black’s Law Dictionary (12th ed.

2024) ...................................................................... .5

Friedrich K. Juenger, Forum Shopping, Domestic

and International, 63 Tul. L. Rev. 553

(1989) ...................................................................... 6

Ill. Civ. Justice League, Justice for Sale III

(2016)…………………………………………………14

James E. Pfander & Jackie O’Brien, Realism,

Formalism, and Personal Jurisdiction: Due

Process after Mallory and Ford Motor,

103 Tex. L. Rev. 65 (2024)...................................... 8

Note, Forum Shopping Reconsidered, 103 Harv. L.

Rev. 1677 (1990) ................................................... 12

Richard Maloy, Forum Shopping – What’s Wrong

With That?, 24 Quinnipiac L. Rev. 25 (2005) ........ 6

Scott Dodson, Civil Procedure: The Culture of Forum

Shopping in Civil Litigation, in The Judges’ Book,

Vol. 9, Art. 5 (Berkeley Jud. Inst. ed., 2025)…5, 7

Victor E. Schwartz et al., Asbestos Litigation in

Madison County, Illinois: The Challenge Ahead,

16 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol’y 235 (2004) ................... .13

vi

William G. Beatty, The Relevance and Semantics of

the Forum Shopping Factor in Illinois Forum Non

Conveniens Jurisprudence,

59 UIC L. Rev. 847 (2026)................................ 7, 13

1

INTEREST OF THE AMICI CURIAE 1

Established in 1977, the Atlantic Legal

Foundation (ALF) is a national, nonprofit,

nonpartisan, public interest law firm. ALF’s mission

for the past five decades has been to advance the rule

of law and civil justice by advocating for individual

liberty, free enterprise, property rights, limited and

responsible government, sound science in judicial and

regulatory proceedings, and effective education,

including parental rights and school choice. With the

benefit of guidance from the distinguished legal

scholars, former government officials, corporate legal

officers, private practitioners, business executives,

and prominent scientists who serve on its Board of

Directors and Advisory Council, ALF pursues its

mission by participating as amicus curiae in carefully

selected appeals before the Supreme Court, federal

courts of appeals, and state supreme courts. See

atlanticlegal.org.

The Federation of Defense & Corporate

Counsel (FDCC) is a not-for-profit corporation with

national and international membership of 1,550

defense and corporate counsel working in private

practice, as in-house counsel, and as insurance

Petitioners’ and Respondents’ counsel were provided timely

notice of this brief in accordance with Supreme Court Rule 37.2.

No counsel for a party authored this brief in whole or in part, and

no party, counsel for a party, or person other than the amici

curiae and their counsel made a monetary contribution intended

to fund preparation or submission of this brief.

1

2

industry professionals. A significant number of FDCC

members practice in the trial and appellate courts of

the United States both at the federal and state level.

Since 1936, FDCC’s members have established a

strong legacy of representing the interests of civil

defendants, including publicly and privately owned

businesses, public entities, and individual defendants.

The FDCC seeks to assist courts in addressing issues

of importance to its membership that concern the fair

and predictable administration of justice. See

thefederation.org.

***

Fairness, clarity, uniformity, and predictability

concerning the circumstances under which an out-ofstate corporation can be haled into a state trial court

by an out-of-state plaintiff are critical to civil justice.

The need for fairness is especially evident in this

case. It is one of thousands of product liability suits

involving lifesaving nutritional products that the

nation’s neonatal intensive care units rely upon to

care for preterm infants. The core allegation in these

suits—despite federal agencies’ scientific and medical

consensus to the contrary—is that the nutritional

products at issue cause necrotizing enterocolitis

(“NEC”), a serious or fatal illness for preterm infants.

Pet. at 2.

The petition explains that although the vast

majority of the 12,500 plaintiffs in pending NEC suits

reside outside of Illinois, 97% of them have filed in

notoriously plaintiff-friendly St. Clair and Madison

3

Counties against the out-of-state Petitioners

(collectively “Mead Johnson”). Id. at 8. Product

manufacturer Mead Johnson was not “at home” in

Illinois when the suits were filed, and the company

had no case-specific ties to Illinois relevant to the

multitude of out-of-state plaintiffs, including

Respondents here. See Pet. at 13, 22.

The NEC product liability litigation is an egregious

example of plaintiff-side forum shopping. The Court

should grant certiorari to reaffirm and enforce its

personal-jurisdiction principles, and in so doing, curb

the abusive forum shopping that this case reflects.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

For many decades, and in a variety of contexts, the

Court has expressed concern about, and sought to

deter, abusive forum shopping—a frequently utilized

mass-litigation strategy fundamentally unfair to

corporate defendants that are not “at home” in, and

have no relevant contacts with, the forum state. State

courts that tolerate, if not welcome, such forumshopping defy this Court’s modern personaljurisdiction principles established in cases such as

Ford Motor Co. v. Mont. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 592 U.S.

351 (2021); Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Super. Ct. of

Cal., 582 U.S. 255, 262 (2017); BNSF Ry. Co. v.

Tyrrell, 581 U.S. 402, 405-06 (2017); Daimler AG v.

Bauman, 571 U.S. 117, 137 (2014); and Goodyear

Dunlop Tires Ops., S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915, 919,

924 (2011). Those personal-jurisdiction principles

“derive from and reflect two sets of values—treating

4

defendants

fairly

and

protecting

federalism.’” Ford, 592 U.S. at 360.

‘interstate

Amici defer to, and do not repeat, Petitioners’

arguments as to why Illinois courts have violated

personal-jurisdiction principles by entertaining this

case and the NEC litigation. Instead, amici focus on

why the Illinois state courts’ assertion of personal

jurisdiction encourages rather than restrains abusive

forum shopping. This is especially troubling since the

present case is representative of a multitude of suits

filed by thousands of out-of-state plaintiffs in the

notoriously plaintiff-friendly courts of St. Clair and

Madison Counties, Illinois against Mead Johnson, the

out-of-state manufacturer of the lifesaving, preterm

infant nutritional products at issue.

Lax enforcement of personal-jurisdiction principles

not only encourages abusive forum shopping, but also

impairs interstate federalism. The coequal sovereign

status of each state is a pillar of the Constitution’s

federalist structure. By flouting this Court’s wellestablished principles concerning general and casespecific personal jurisdiction, Illinois courts have

attempted to extend that state’s sovereignty in a way

that interferes with other states’ coequal

sovereignty—such as the sovereignty of the state

where a defendant corporation is incorporated or

headquartered, or the state where a cause of action

arose.

This case is an ideal vehicle for the Court to

reaffirm that enforcement of the well-established

5

limits on the exercise of personal jurisdiction over outof-state corporations is critical to curbing masslitigation forum shopping by out-of-state plaintiffs.

ARGUMENT

The Court Should Grant Certiorari To Reaffirm

and

Enforce

Its

Personal-Jurisdiction

Principles and Thereby Curb Abusive Forum

Shopping

A. Plaintiff-side forum shopping in product

liability

litigation

undermines

the

fairness of the civil justice system

1. Forum shopping is “[t]he practice of choosing

the most favorable jurisdiction or court in which a

claim may be heard.” Forum Shopping, Black’s Law

Dictionary (12th ed. 2024). “U.S. forum shopping is

broad in scope, widespread in practice, and

quintessentially American in design.” Scott Dodson,

Civil Procedure: The Culture of Forum Shopping in

Civil Litigation, in The Judges’ Book, Vol. 9, Art. 5, at

34 (Berkeley Jud. Inst. ed., 2025). “Motive and

opportunity breed forum shopping, which reflects the

reality that a plaintiff who must initially choose

between available forums is likely to choose one

favorable to the plaintiff’s interests.” Id. at 26. Going

at least as far back as International Shoe Co. v.

Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945), this Court has

emphasized, however, that a plaintiff’s choice of forum

must be to a court that can exercise personal

jurisdiction without depriving a corporate defendant

6

of due process. Where, as here, a plaintiff chooses a

court that actually cannot properly exercise personal

jurisdiction within constitutional limits, forum

shopping a case to such an unavailable court is unfair.

2. Forum shopping not only is unfair, but also

abusive, where, as here, an out-of-state corporate

defendant is confronted with class or mass product

liability (or other types of litigation) in a demonstrably

plaintiff-friendly court whose assertion of personal

jurisdiction is dubious at best. “As a rule, counsel,

judges, and academicians employ the term ‘forum

shopping’ to reproach a litigant who, in their opinion,

unfairly exploits jurisdictional or venue rules to affect

the outcome of a lawsuit.” Friedrich K. Juenger,

Forum Shopping, Domestic and International, 63 Tul.

L. Rev. 553 (1989); see also Richard Maloy, Forum

Shopping – What’s Wrong With That?, 24 Quinnipiac

L. Rev. 25, 28 (2005) (“[F]orum shopping is the taking

of an unfair advantage of a party in litigation.”).

Plaintiffs’ attorneys forum shop for a variety of

reasons, and it is particularly rampant in the productliability arena. For example, they file suits in courts

with—

•

plaintiff-friendly judges and juries;

•

long statutes of limitations;

•

favorable substantive law and receptivity to

novel and expansive theories of corporate

liability;

7

•

discovery and trial-court procedures slanted

toward plaintiffs;

•

lax standards, or enforcement of standards, for

admission of expert testimony; and

•

high damages caps (if any), coupled with a

reputation for “nuclear verdicts” or excessive

damages awards.

See Dodson, supra, at 30 (summarizing reasons why

plaintiffs forum shop); William G. Beatty, The

Relevance and Semantics of the Forum Shopping

Factor in Illinois Forum Non Conveniens

Jurisprudence, 59 UIC L. Rev. 847, 850 (2026) (same).

There is no shortage of plaintiff-friendly state

courts in the United States. See, e.g., Am. Tort Reform

Found. (“ATR Found.”), Judicial Hellholes 2025–2026,

at 87 (“Judicial Hellholes are known for being

plaintiff-friendly and thus attract personal injury

cases with little or no connection to the jurisdiction.

Judges in these jurisdictions often refuse to stop this

forum shopping.”).

As usual, St. Clair, Madison, and Cook Counties,

Illinois are near the top of the ATR Foundation’s latest

list of “judicial hellholes.” See id. at 49-55. One reason

for this recurring designation is that “[t]his trio of

counties is ground zero for baseless baby formula

litigation based on junk science.” Id. at 2.

8

3. Forum shopping implicates a fundamental

question: “Should plaintiffs’ lawyers be permitted to

file cases in states that have no connection to the

dispute in order to gain the benefit of a favorable jury

pool, a plaintiff-friendly judiciary, or both?” Andrew J.

Pincus et al., Personal Jurisdiction After Mallory, ILR

Briefly (U.S. Chamber of Com. Inst. for Legal Reform,

Nov. 16, 2023), at 1.

That sort of abusive forum shopping

reduces respect for the judiciary, creating

the appearance that outcomes are not

based on the law or facts but instead result

from picking a favorable decision maker. It

produces overburdening, poor decision

making, and increased costs in the courts

that become the preferred “magnet

jurisdictions,” to the detriment of

businesses and consumers alike. It also

imposes unfair burdens on defendants and

violates basic federalism principles.

Id.

In today’s ultra-litigious climate, third-party

litigation funding, targeted advertising to attract

potential claimants and bias the jury pool, and

widespread coordination within the plaintiffs’ bar,

facilitate forum shopping to the detriment of corporate

defendants. See James E. Pfander & Jackie O’Brien,

Realism, Formalism, and Personal Jurisdiction: Due

Process after Mallory and Ford Motor, 103 Tex. L. Rev.

65, 100 (2024). For example, “[r]esidents in St. Clair

9

and Madison Counties were exposed to nearly 549,000

ads with trial lawyers spending $41 million on

advertisements across all mediums during [January

2024 through June 2025].” ATR Found., supra, at 49.

4. Plaintiff-side forum shopping not only is unfair

to corporate defendants, but also can undermine the

impartiality and credibility of a state’s judiciary,

especially in states such as Illinois where judges are

elected. “[U]nrestricted forum shopping makes it

almost impossible for defendants to get a fair trial in

some of the magic jurisdictions favored by the

plaintiffs’ bar, where trial lawyers have established

relationships with the judges that are elected.”

Pincus, supra, at 9 (internal quotation marks

omitted).

The availability of forum shopping also “can lead to

‘forum selling,’ the creation of excessively pro-plaintiff

law by judges who want to hear more cases.” Daniel

Klerman, Rethinking Personal Jurisdiction, 6 J. Legal

Analysis 245, 247 (2014).

“Loose jurisdictional rules that allow plaintiffs to

choose among many potential courts give judges an

incentive to be pro-plaintiff in order to attract

litigation.” Id. “Without constitutional constraints on

assertions of jurisdiction, some courts are likely to be

biased in favor of plaintiffs in order to attract

litigation and thus benefit themselves or their

communities.” Daniel Klerman & Greg Reilly, Forum

Selling, 89 S. Cal. L. Rev. 241, 243 (2016); see, e.g.,

Cynthia L. Fountaine, “Don’t Come Around Here No

10

More”: Narrowing Personal Jurisdiction Over NonResident Corporations in Illinois, 42 S. Ill. U. L.J. 593,

594 (2018) (observing that “Madison County’s mass

tort litigation industry” has become “an economic

driver in the local community”). And of course, some

state-court judges may want to attract high-profile

cases to impose their own ideological views. This

troubling forum-selling corollary to forum shopping

“leads to inefficient distortions of substantive law,

procedure, and trial management practices.”

Klerman, supra, at 246.

5. At least since Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304

U.S. 64 (1938), this Court, in many different contexts,

has decried forum shopping. See, e.g.,

• Berk v. Choy, 607 U.S. 187, 191 (2026) (“A state law

is substantive if . . . failing to apply it in federal

court would promote forum shopping and the

inequitable administration of the law.”);

• Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831, 899-900 (2025)

(Sotomayor,

J.,

dissenting)

(“[U]niversal

injunctions encourage forum shopping, by allowing

preferred district judges in a venue picked by one

plaintiff to

enjoin governmental policies

nationwide.”); Labrador v. Poe, 144 S. Ct. 921, 927

(2024) (mem.) (Gorsuch, J.) (“In universalinjunction practice. . . [j]ust do a little forum

shopping for a willing judge and . . . you can win a

decree barring the enforcement of a duly enacted

law against anyone.”); United States v. Texas, 599

U.S. 670, 694 (2023) (“Universal injunctions . . .

11

encourage parties to engage in forum shopping

. . . .”);

•

Great Lakes Ins. SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co.,

LLC, 601 U.S. 65, 72 (2024) (“Choice-of-law

provisions . . . discourage forum shopping, further

cutting the costs of litigation.”);

• Ford Motor Co. v. Mont. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 592

U.S. 351, 370 (2021) (observing that the plaintiffs

in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Super. Ct. of Cal.,

582 U.S. 255 (2017) “were engaged in forumshopping—suing in California because it was

thought plaintiff-friendly, even though their cases

had no tie to the State”);

• Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, 575 U.S. 433, 454

(2015) (rejecting a state judge recusal rule “that

would enable transparent forum shopping”);

• Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U.S.

663, 670 (2014) (“The federal limitations

prescription governing copyright suits serves . . . to

prevent the forum shopping invited by disparate

state limitations periods . . . .”);

• Atl. Marine Constr. Co. v. U.S. Dist. Ct., 571 U.S.

49, 65 (2013) (federal change-of-venue statute

“should not create or multiply opportunities for

forum shopping” where parties have agreed to a

contractual forum-selection clause) (internal

quotation marks omitted);

12

• Shady Grove Orthopedic Assocs., P.A. v. Allstate

Ins. Co., 559 U.S. 393, 415 (2010) (“We must

acknowledge the reality that keeping the federalcourt door open to class actions that cannot

proceed in state court will produce forum

shopping.”);

• Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U.S. 1, 15 (1984)

(“The interpretation given to the Arbitration Act

by the California Supreme Court would therefore

encourage and reward forum shopping.”);

• Hanna v. Plumer, 380 U.S. 460, 468 (1965)

(“discouragement of forum-shopping” is one of the

Erie rule’s aims).

See also Note, Forum Shopping Reconsidered, 103

Harv. L. Rev. 1677, 1681 (1990) (“The Supreme Court

has relied on the ‘danger of forum shopping’ in

reaching many decisions.”); Anthony J. Gaughan, The

Unsettled State of Corporate General Personal

Jurisdiction, 103 Neb. L. Rev. 131, 181 (2024) (“[T]he

Goodyear trilogy”—Goodyear, Daimler, and BNSF—

“reduced forum shopping.”).

6. The Illinois Supreme Court has observed that

“courts have never favored forum shopping.” Dawdy v.

Union Pacific R.R. Co., 797 N.E.2d 687, 695 (Ill. 2003).

“The judiciary . . . has sought to protect its own good

name as well as to protect defendants . . . against the

practice of seeking out soft spots in the judicial system

13

in which to bring particular kinds of litigation.” Id.

(cleaned up). Nonetheless, “[f]orum shopping . . . has

become commonplace in Illinois jurisprudence.”

Beatty, supra, at 847.

St. Clair and Madison Counties are especially

infamous for welcoming forum-shopping plaintiffs,

including in mass product liability litigation. For

example, Madison County’s circuit court “has long

been known as a judicial magnet for plaintiffs in

asbestos litigation, FELA cases, medical malpractice

actions, and product liability cases . . . for being

friendly to all plaintiffs, regardless of residency, and

hostile to corporate defendants, both domestic and

foreign.” Id. at 871.

Relevant here, the ATR Foundation describes St.

Clair, Madison, and Cook Counties as “Ground Zero

for Harmful Baby Formula Litigation.” ATR Found.,

supra, at 49. Indeed, these counties have maintained

their nationwide reputation as a plaintiffs’ forumshopping haven for decades. See, e.g., Victor E.

Schwartz et al., Asbestos Litigation in Madison

County, Illinois: The Challenge Ahead, 16 Wash. U.

J.L. & Pol’y 235 (2004) (“The Chicago Tribune has

called Madison County a ‘jackpot jurisdiction,’ a

‘hotbed of megabuck litigation,’ a ‘local slot machine,’

and ‘the most magic of all’ magic jurisdictions.”).

Adjacent St. Clair County, along with Cook County

(which includes Chicago), are no different.

“These three counties are home to a

disproportionate amount of the state’s nuclear

14

verdicts®.” ATR Found., supra, at 49. In addition to

bombarding residents of St. Clair, Madison, and Cook

Counties with trial-lawyer advertising, forum

shoppers are attracted to these counties because of the

tens of millions of dollars in donations that the Illinois

Trial Lawyers Association’s Legislative PAC makes to

Illinois political candidates—including state appellate

and circuit court judges, who initially run in partisan

elections. See Illinois Judicial Elections, Ballotpedia,

https://perma.cc/2U82-N7RU (last visited June 28,

2026). “When the three counties with the highest

concentration of civil litigation also are the three

counties that draw the biggest campaign contributions

by trial lawyers, it’s fair to ask: ‘Is Justice for Sale in

Illinois?’” Ill. Civ. Justice League, Justice for Sale III

(2016), at 3.

The fact that this case was filed in St. Clair County

presents the Court with an ideal and timely

opportunity to address transparent, mass-litigation

forum shopping in the context of state trial and

appellate court rulings that, if left undisturbed,

breach the well-defined boundaries of this Court’s

personal-jurisdiction principles.

B. Lax enforcement of personal-jurisdiction

principles impairs interstate federalism

Forum shopping not only is unfair to corporate

defendants, but also upsets the balance of “interstate

federalism.”

This term “refers to the relationship between the

states within our federal system, their status as

15

coequal sovereigns, and the limits on state power that

derive from that status.” A. Benjamin Spencer,

Jurisdiction to Adjudicate: A Revised Analysis,

73 U. Chi. L. Rev. 616, 624, 637 (2006). “Interstate

sovereign immunity is . . . integral to the structure of

the Constitution.” Franchise Tax Bd. v. Hyatt, 587

U.S. 230, 246 (2019). The fifty States are “coequal

sovereigns” within the unitary federal system. WorldWide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 292

(1980). “‘The sovereignty of each State . . . implie[s] a

limitation on the sovereignty of all its sister States.’”

Bristol-Myers Squibb, 582 U.S. at 263 (quoting WorldWide Volkswagen, 444 U.S. at 293).

In her dissenting opinion in Mallory v. Norfolk

Southern Railway Co., 600 U.S. 122 (2023), Justice

Barrett, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices

Kagan and Kavanaugh, explained that

[t]he Due Process Clause protects more

than the rights of defendants—it also

protects interstate federalism. We have

emphasized this principle in case after

case.

Id. at 169 (Barrett, J., dissenting).

“[T]his Court has considered alongside defendants’

interests those of the States in relation to each other.

One State’s sovereign power to try a suit . . . may

prevent ‘sister States’ from exercising their like

authority.” Ford, 592 U.S. at 360. Rather than

respecting each state’s role as a coequal sovereign, a

state court that defies this Court’s principles of

16

general and case-specific jurisdiction not only impairs

the due process protections afforded to out-of-state

corporations, but also violates interstate federalism

by encroaching upon the sovereignty of the states

where exercise of personal jurisdiction may be proper.

CONCLUSION

The Court should grant the petition for a writ of

certiorari.

Respectfully submitted,

LAWRENCE S. EBNER

Counsel of Record

ATLANTIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

1701 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 729-6337

lawrence.ebner@atlanticlegal.org

July 2026