March 2017

Photo of Steven Boranian

It is has been a rough few weeks for forum-shopping litigation tourists. We wrote the other day on the Missouri Supreme Court’s landmark opinion in State ex rel. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. Dolan, which held that Missouri’s courts do not have jurisdiction over out-of-state controversies involving out-of-state defendants.  It has long been the practice of many plaintiffs’ lawyers to group hundreds of claims together in Missouri state court because they prefer that venue and for the sake of their own convenience.  The Norfolk Southern Railway case should put an end to that.

Another bulwark against litigation tourism is the Class Action Fairness Act, which Congress enacted in 2005 to address abuses in aggregated litigation. Among other provisions, CAFA makes actions combining 100 or more plaintiffs removable to federal court as “mass actions.”  We have written a lot on mass actions, including multiple posts on removing mass actions to federal court even when plaintiffs’ counsel try to break their claims into multiple actions of less than 100 plaintiffs.  A not-too-old post on the topic is here, and you can link from there to numerous others.  The gist is that transparent gamesmanship should not prevent federal courts from retaining jurisdiction over hundreds of plaintiffs bringing coordinated claims, even when plaintiffs’ lawyers go through their usual machinations to avoid it.

That is what happened in Portnoff v. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, No. 16-5955, 2017 WL 708745 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 22, 2017), and the district court’s order denying the plaintiff’s motion to remand is really interesting.  First some background:  Six plaintiffs’ law firms filed a “Petition to Consolidate and for Mass Tort Designation” in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas requesting consolidation of 87 pending pharmaceutical cases.  They withdrew the petition about two weeks later and filed a second petition in its place. Id. at **2-3.Continue Reading An Intelligent Treatment of “Mass Actions” in Pennsylvania

Photo of Rachel B. Weil

We loved La La Land.   We were enchanted by the colors and the music and the dancing.  We were transported by the dreams-come-true and saddened by the could-have-beens.  We disappeared into the characters’ world for two hours and were not ready when the lights came up.   For us, it was the epitome of a movie experience, and we were thrilled – momentarily – when it was announced as Best Picture.  But, as all who witnessed Oscargate (and anyone who didn’t spend the last week in a submarine) can attest, simply saying it didn’t make it so.

Last week, in Bowersock, et al. v. Davol, Inc. and C.R. Bard, Inc., 2017 WL 711849 (S.D. Ind. Feb. 23, 2017) the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana reached the same conclusion, excluding the plaintiffs’ experts in a hernia mesh case.  The plaintiffs claimed that a component of the defendants’ hernia mesh patch – a polyethylene terephthalate ring – perforated the intestines of the plaintiffs’ decedent, ultimately resulting in sepsis and death.

An autopsy was performed and concluded that the decedent’s small bowel and colon were intact, without perforation. But the hernia mesh patch was not retrieved from the decedent’s body before she was buried, so, seven years later (!!!), the plaintiffs had the body exhumed so the patch could be retrieved and analyzed, after which they submitted the reports of two causation experts – a surgeon and a biomedical engineer – to opine that components of the mesh patch caused the decedent’s injuries.

The Surgeon

The plaintiffs’ first expert, a general and gastrointestinal surgeon who used the defendants’ patch in his own practice, reviewed the patch explanted from the decedent’s exhumed body. He opined that the ring, though not broken, had buckled, creating a sharp edge that rubbed against the decedent’s bowel and perforated it.Continue Reading Southern District of Indiana Excludes Plaintiffs’ Experts in Hernia Mesh Case

Photo of Bexis

If we’d learned about State ex rel. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. Dolan, No. SC95514, slip op. (Mo. Feb. 28, 2017) (“NSRC”), earlier, this would have been a breaking news post – but make no mistake about it, this is big news.  Unanimously, the Missouri Supreme Court has, for all intents and purposes, put an end to Missouri’s notorious litigation tourism industry (about a month before the Legislature would have done the same).

NSRC is a railway accident case, not a product liability action, but the jurisdictional facts are familiar to anyone interested in Missouri jurisdiction and venue issues. An out-of-state litigation-tourist, personal-injury plaintiff sued a large out-of-state corporation in Missouri state court (county not stated, but we can guess) over injuries not suffered in Missouri. NSRC, slip op. at 2-3.  The Missouri Supreme Court made three major rulings:  (1) no general jurisdiction exists over the non-resident corporate defendant because it was not “at home” in Missouri; (2) no specific jurisdiction existed because the litigation tourist’s injuries did not “relate to” the defendant’s Missouri activities; and (3) the defendant’s compliance with the Missouri statute governing corporate registration did not constitute “consent” to general personal jurisdiction.

First, general jurisdiction.  Due process under Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746, 751 (2014), requires that a corporation be “at home” in the state in question.  While the defendant conducted “continuous and systematic” business in Missouri (and in 21 other states), that business “represents a tiny portion of [defendant’s] entire nationwide business.” NSRC, slip op. at 8.  Game over on general jurisdiction . Bauman “observed that finding a corporation at home wherever it does business would destroy the distinction between general and specific jurisdiction.”  Id. at 9.Continue Reading Litigation Tourism Ended In Missouri

Drug & Device Resources

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FDA-regulated products now account for an estimated one-fifth of overall economic activity in the U.S. They have also been the focus of a litigation explosion. This timely guide covers all aspects of litigation involving drugs, medical devices, vaccines and other FDA-regulated prescription products.
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