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SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA
No. 98-CC-1126 EVELYN DECUIR RUCKSTUHL AND RICHARD E. RUCKSTUHL Versus OWENS CORNING FIBERGLAS CORPORATION, ET AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL, FIRST CIRCUIT, PARISH OF EAST BATON ROUGE VICTORY, J.* We granted this writ to determine whether this state may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident corporate defendant who manufactured and supplied, in vast quantities, a major component part of a product which entered Louisiana through the marketing and distribution practices of the end product manufacturer and purportedly injured a Louisiana resident. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY In March of 1996, Evelyn Ruckstuhl, a resident of East Baton Rouge Parish, was diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer, as a result of exposure to asbestos. Mr. and Mrs. Ruckstuhl filed a petition for damages against ten defendants1, including Hollingsworth and Vose Company ("H&V"), Vose Specialties Co., Inc. ("Specialties"), and Lorillard Tobacco Company ("Lorillard"), in the parish of East Baton Rouge on January 13, 1997. Plaintiffs allege that between 1952 and 1959, Mrs. Ruckstuhl inhaled asbestos fibers and dust from her husband's work clothes during his employment at the Exxon refinery and that she smoked Kent cigarettes with a "Micronite" filter containing crocidolite asbestos. They assert that during that period,
*

Kimball, J., not on panel. Rule IV, Part 2,

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Louisiana Law