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Hydroxychloroquide (“HCQ”) is a colorless, odorless, tasteless airborne chemical that is undetectable to human senses. It is a by-product of home heating systems that is ordinarily vented safely out of the house by properly functioning home exhaust systems, but if inhaled in sufficient quantities and concentrations and for long enough, can cause symptoms such as allergic and asthmatic reactions, headache, eye irritation, difficulty breathing, and, at high exposure levels, even death. In 2010, the State of Texoma enacted a law requiring that effective January 1, 2011 all new residential construction in the state contain recently developed infrared HCQ detectors, which must meet industry-wide standards for safety and effectiveness. The law further required that no later than January 1, 2020, all residences in Texoma be “retrofitted” with HCQ detectors. You are a mid-level associate in the litigation department of a medium sized Texoma City law firm and you drive to work every day from your home in the Texoma Hills. The population of Texoma City is 1 million, and the population of the Texoma City metropolitan area is 2 million inhabitants. You and a client of yours from some previous business litigation, Joanne, have fallen in love and are living together with the hope of getting married some day when (and if!) the current economic climate improves and after you (hopefully) make partner. Joanne has developed respiratory symptoms in the past year that seem to be getting worse. She has just returned to Texoma City from visiting her family 75 miles away in her hometown of Saint Hubert, Texoma and tells you that they (her parents, who until the last two years have been in excellent health, and her two younger sisters) also have developed intermittent respiratory symptoms recently, which include shortness of breath and labored and sometimes even irritated breathing. Joanne has read news and Internet accounts reporting that defective home exhaust systems and defective HCQ detectors have been identified in many parts of the country as causing moderate to severe respiratory distress and even some deaths. In response to these reports, federal authorities have launched both civil and criminal investigations. Joanne tells you that her parents updated their home heating and ventilation system in 2019. They purchased a new furnace and new ductwork from Home Ventilation Systems (“HVS”), a Texoma City area retailer. HVS subcontracted with Installit/Removeit (“IR”), a local contractor, to do the installation. The job also included installation by IR of BreatheEasy HCQ detectors, manufactured by BreatheEasy Inc. (“BE”), a national chain, incorporated in Delaware with a principal place of business in Virginia. BE’s HCQ detectors are manufactured overseas in countries with low labor costs. BE sells its products to home improvement merchants and to individual consumers through independent retail stores located in Texoma and elsewhere in the United States. Your firm hired you three years ago for its litigation department based on your excellent academic record, a glowing recommendation from your Civil Procedure professor, and your summer externship working for a noted class action attorney in Oakland, California. You discuss Joanne’s family’s situation with your senior partners and present them with the information you and Joanne have gathered. You and your supervisors see potential big dollars from a possible class action, and you see this case as your possible ticket of admission to partnership. Encouraged by your partners’ enthusiasm, you and Joanne investigate further, and learn from various sources about other incidents of serious respiratory illness, suspected to have been traced to homes in the Texoma City area where BE HCQ detectors have been installed. You have identified a potential expert witness in Chicago, a respiratory diseases specialist who has written a number of articles linking defective HCQ detectors to various respiratory diseases. Your firm decides to bring a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of Texoma (rather than in the Western District, where St. Hubert is located), with the putative class consisting of all Texoma City area homeowners. Some partners in your firm, however, have expressed concerns that the costs of this litigation (from discovery, class notification costs, and from potential expert witness fees, etc.) might be prohibitive – the firm has been struggling economically lately and has been trying to avoid layoffs. Your partners have assigned you to be lead counsel in the case, although working in close consultation with the head of the litigation department. Your complaint names Joanne as the proposed class representative plaintiff and you as proposed class counsel, against Home Ventilation Systems (the retailer), BreatheEasy (the manufacturer), and Installit/Removeit (the installer), and also against as-yet unnamed and unknown manufacturers, sellers and installers of HCQ detectors installed in the Texoma City area whose identities may be subsequently learned through discovery and who may be joined as defendants later on. Your lawsuit invokes “supplemental jurisdiction” against IR. The complaint, which you principally drafted, alleges that the respective defendants manufactured, sold, and installed defective home HCQ detection products which caused injury to Texoma City area homeowners and great anxiety to homeowners who although not suffering from symptoms of respiratory distress, are concerned that they and their families are at heightened risk of contracting asthma, emphysema, and other respiratory illnesses. The defendants have all answered, denying liability and opposing class certification. Question 5 (10 points) (Separate and apart from the class action issues in Questions 1 through 4,) BE moves to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. What result, and why?  
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