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2004 Mich. St. L. Rev. 619 (2004)
Implied Consent to Personal Jurisdiction in Transnational Class Litigation

handle is hein.journals/mslr2004 and id is 629 raw text is: IMPLIED CONSENT TO PERSONAL JURISDICTION IN TRANSNATIONAL CLASS LITIGATION' Debra Lyn Bassett- 2004 MICH. ST. L. REV. 619 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................ 619 I. THE GUIDING SUPREME COURT JURISPRUDENCE ............... 620 II. THE FALLACY OF CONSENT IN TRANSNATIONAL CLASS ACTIONS 624 A . N otice ........................................... 626 B. Opportunity to Opt Out .............................. 628 Im. A PROPOSAL FOR ADDRESSING CONSENT IN TRANSNATIONAL CLASS ACTIONS ....................................... 637 CONCLUSION ............................................. 641 INTRODUCTION Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the special problem of non- U.S. class members' participation in U.S.-situated class litigation. International class actions tend to evoke images of an entirely foreign class suing a U.S. defendant, as in the Bhopal disaster.' However, class actions have an international component whenever class membership crosses * The ideas expressed in this article are taken from a longer exposition, published in the Fordham Law Review, which addressed due process in transnational class actions. See Debra Lyn Bassett, US. Class Actions Go Global: Transnational Class Actions and Personal Jurisdiction, 72 FORDHAM L. REv. 41 (2003). ** Loula Fuller and Dan Myers Professor of Law, Florida State University College of Law. J.D. 1987, University of California, Davis; M.S. 1982, San Diego State University; B.A. 1977, University of Vermont. I would like to thank the Multi-Jurisdictional and Cross-Border Class Actions Symposium participants-Linda Mullenix, Linda Silberman, Patrick Woolley, Robert Klonoff, Rex Perschbacher, Janet Walker, Tobias Wolff, Edward Cooper, Kevin Johnson and George Martinez-for their helpful comments. 1. See In re Union Carbide Corp. Gas Plant Disaster, 809 F.2d 195 (2d Cir. 1987). The Bhopal case, which was dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds, involved: thousands of claims by citizens of India and the Government of India arising out of the most devastating industrial disaster in history-the deaths of over 2,000 persons and injuries of over 200,000 caused by lethal gas known as methyl isocyanate which was released from a chemical plant operated by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) in Bhopal, India. In re Union Carbide, 809 F.2d at 197.

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