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HEADNOTE: COURTS -- PERSONAL JURISDICTION -- LONG-ARM STATUTE -- DUE PROCESS -- MINIMUM CONTACTS -- PURPOSEFUL AVAILMENT -- An Australian corporation that used the Port of Baltimore ("Port") as a conduit in shipping raw asbestos from Australia to United States customers located outside of Maryland did not attain sufficient minimum contacts with Maryland so as to render lawful the Circuit Court for Baltimore City's exercise of personal jurisdiction. To attain sufficient minimum contacts with the forum state, a defendant must satisfy the "purposeful availment" requirement, thus creating a substantial connection with the forum state. Such a connection will be forged where the defendant either engages in significant activities in Maryland or creates continuing obligations with the State's residents. Purposeful availment does not arise from random, fortuitous, or attenuated contacts between the defendant and the forum state, nor from the unilateral activity of another party or a third person. Here, CSR's use of the Port does not constitute purposeful availment, as there existed no relationship between the defendant and any Maryland-based entities. Moreover, CSR's act of shipping asbestos products into the Port was not done at the company's behest but, rather, at the direction of the consumers of the company's asbestos products. Finally, there exist no other contacts between CSR and Maryland that would suffice to demonstrate the defendant's purposeful availment.

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND No. 129 September Term, 2008

CSR, LIMITED v. ANDREA TAYLOR, ET AL.

Bell, C.J. Harrell Battaglia Greene Murphy Eldridge, John C. (Retired, Specially Assigned) Raker, Irma S. (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Opinion by Greene, J. Bell, C.J., Murphy and Raker, JJ., Dissent.

Filed: November 16, 2009

This case requires us to determine whether the Circuit Court for Baltimore City would have been justified in exercising in personam jurisdiction over Petitioner, Colonial Sugar Refining Co., Ltd. ("CSR"), an Australian business entity, under the circumstances presented in this case. Andrea Taylor and Mary Fuchsluger (collectively, "Respondents") are the personal representatives of the estates of two former stevedores who worked at the Port of Baltimore ("Port") and who allegedly contracted mesothelioma from the offloading of raw asbestos and asbestos-containing products. Respondents attribute the stevedores' illnesses, in part, to CSR's use of the Port as a conduit in shipping raw asbestos fibers from Australia to United States consumers located outside of Maryland. To properly assert jurisdiction over CSR, a foreign corporation, Petitioner's actions must satisfy the requirements set forth in Maryland's long-arm statute, Md. Code (1974, 2006 Repl. Vol.),

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Maryland Law