Page:Mallory v. Norfolk Southern.pdf/38

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Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)
7

Opinion of Alito, J.

714, 722 (1878). “The several States,” the Court explained, “are of equal dignity and authority, and the independence of one implies the exclusion of power from all others.” Ibid. The Court warned that, in certain circumstances, a State’s exercise of jurisdiction over non-residents would be “an encroachment upon the independence of [another] State” and a “usurpation” of that State’s authority. Id., at 723. And the Court noted that this was not a newly-developed doctrine, but reflected “well-established principles of public law” that “ha[d] been frequently expressed … in opinions of eminent judges, and … carried into adjudications in numerous cases.” Id., at 722, 724; see, e.g., D’Arcy v. Ketchum, 11 How. 165, 176 (1851); Picquet v. Swan, 19 F. Cas. 609, 612 (No. 11,134) (CC Mass. 1828) (Story, J.).

Our post-International Shoe decisions have continued to recognize that constitutional restrictions on state court jurisdiction “are more than a guarantee of immunity from inconvenient or distant litigation,” but reflect “territorial limitations” on state power. Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U. S. 235, 251 (1958); see also World-Wide Volkswagen, 444 U. S., at 292 (in addition to “protect[ing] the defendant against the burdens of litigating in a distant or inconvenient forum,” due process “acts to ensure that the States, through their courts, do not reach out beyond the limits imposed on them by their status as coequal sovereigns in a federal system”); id., at 293 (“The sovereignty of each State …implie[s] a limitation on the sovereignty of all of its sister States—a limitation express or implicit in both the original scheme of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment”); J. McIntyre Machinery, 564 U. S., at 884 (plurality opinion) (if a “State were to assert jurisdiction in an inappropriate case, it would upset the federal balance, which posits that each State has a sovereignty that is not subject to unlawful intrusion by other States”). And we have recognized that in some circumstances, “federalism interest[s] may be decisive” in the due process analysis. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.