November 2016

Photo of Stephen McConnell

We are on a personal jurisdiction roll this week.  You might even say we’ve got Big Mo behind us.  That Mo, of course, refers to Momentum, though it also nicely captures the fact that yesterday’s defense-favorable personal jurisdiction case (Addelson) came out of Missouri.  Today’s case, Bauer v. Nortek Global HVAC LLC, 2016 WL 5724232 (M.D. Tenn. Sept. 30, 2016), is out of the Middle District of Tennessee.  The Bauer case does not involve drugs or medical devices. Rather, a bunch of consumers claimed they bought bum air conditioners.  But Bauer is a very interesting case because that ‘bunch’ of consumers styled themselves as a class or classes.  Thus, Bauer offers a useful application of Bauman personal jurisdiction principles to class actions.  The reasoning and prose are both sharp.

The Bauer class representatives came from Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. (Why they didn’t add Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina to represent the entire SEC, we don’t know.  In any event, it is certainly understandable why clever plaintiff lawyers might want to cobble together classes of aggrieved air-conditioner buyers who live in hot places.) The claims included breaches of warranties and violations of the various states’ deceptive trade practices acts.  The defendants were not incorporated in Tennessee, nor did they have a principal place of business there.  One of the defendants had a distribution/manufacturing facility in Tennessee.  So what, you say?  You are exactly right, as it turns out.  The defendants filed a motion to dismiss all claims brought by the non-Tennessee plaintiffs for lack of personal jurisdiction.  The defendants won that motion.  They also moved to dismiss the Tennessee plaintiff’s claims based on the statute of limitations.  The defendants won that motion, too.  But for today’s purposes, we are focusing on the jurisdictional argument.Continue Reading M.D. Tenn. Bids Adieu to Out-of-State Class Reps

Photo of Michelle Yeary

This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.

There are two key rulings in Addelson v. Sanofi S.A., 2016 WL 6216124 (E.D. Mo. Oct. 25, 2016). Neither is novel or complex. The court can’t exercise personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant on claims made by an out-of-state plaintiff and said out-of-state plaintiff can’t be used to defeat federal diversity jurisdiction. Their significance lies more in the fact that they were issued by the Eastern District of Missouri.

Defendant Sanofi (the U.S. subsidiary) is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in New Jersey. Id. at *1. Plaintiff Addelson is a resident of St. Louis County, Missouri. Plaintiff Braxton is a New Jersey resident. Plaintiffs both were prescribed and used the prescription medication taxotere in their home states. Id. Plaintiffs have no relationship with each other.

Plaintiffs’ counsel filed a single complaint on behalf of both women in state court in Saint Louis, Missouri – a known judicial hellhole favored by the plaintiffs’ bar. So, why join these two women? Plaintiff Addelson is a Missouri resident who suffered her alleged injury in Missouri which establishes personal jurisdiction for this incident over Sanofi. Plaintiff Braxton is a New Jersey resident which means there is no diversity between her and Sanofi which also means the case can’t be removed to federal court. Clearly a not-too-subtle attempt by plaintiffs to bring and keep this case in state court in St. Louis. Unfortunately, this is a tactic that has worked in Missouri. Missouri’s joinder rules have been broadly interpreted to often allow plaintiffs’ counsel to join together groups of plaintiffs from different states with nothing in common except use of the same product. So, 1 Missouri plaintiff gets you the connection to Missouri and 1 plaintiff from defendant’s home state defeats diversity and keeps you in state court.Continue Reading Misjoined Plaintiffs Can’t Be Used to Forum Shop

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