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Rh While the Court reaches the right result today, its choice of the wrong path matters. Not just because continuing to apply the Thunder Basin factors leaves the law badly distorted. It also matters because Thunder Basin’s throw-it-in-a-blender approach to jurisdiction imposes serious and needless costs on litigants and lower courts alike.

Jurisdictional rules, this Court has often said, should be “clear and easy to apply.” Hamer v. ''Neighborhood Housing Servs. of Chicago, 583 U. S. 17, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 8); see also Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U. S. 358, 364, n. 2 (1990); Foremost Ins. Co. v. Richardson'', 457 U. S. 668, 676–677 (1982). For parties, “[c]omplex jurisdictional tests complicate a case, eating up time and money as [they] litigate, not the merits of their claims, but which court is the right court to decide those claims.” Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 559 U. S. 77, 94 (2010). For courts, jurisdictional rules “mark the bounds” of their “ ‘adjudicatory authority.’ ” Boechler v. Commissioner, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 2). Judges therefore “benefit from straightforward rules under which they can readily assure themselves of their power to hear a case,” Hertz, 559 U. S., at 94, while “adventitious” rules leave them with “almost impossible” tasks to perform that squander their limited resources, Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. Cleveland, 409 U. S. 249, 266 (1972).

There are many words to describe the Thunder Basin factors, but “clear and easy to apply” are not among them. To appreciate the trouble Thunder Basin can generate for litigants and lower courts alike, consider some of the facts of Ms. Cochran’s case that do not find their way into the Court’s opinion.

A single mother of two and a certified public accountant, Ms. Cochran began looking for part-time work in 2007.