We’ve blogged about the United States Supreme Court’s pending personal jurisdiction cases before. Well, they pend no longer. Yesterday the Court unanimously (with a couple of concurrences) ruled that resident plaintiffs injured by products originally manufactured and sold elsewhere could sue a nationwide company like Ford – that “purposefully avail[ed] itself of the privilege
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Ninth Circuit Holds The Line On Post-Ford Personal Jurisdiction
By Steven Boranian on
We have never been sued in Hawaii. At least not yet. It could be that someday someone will call us to task for eating too much shave ice or using the word “mahalo” incorrectly. But so far we have traversed the Aloha State unscathed by legal exposure. Our favorite Hawaiian island is Kauai, the Garden…
Stretching Specific Personal Jurisdiction And Shrinking Preemption At The Pleadings Stage
By Eric Alexander on
When we started seeing a smattering of cases over long-term contraceptive devices used in connection with tubal ligation surgery, we were not surprised. Plaintiff lawyers have targeted a wide range of contraceptive drugs and devices for decades. Commentators beyond this Blog have described how this bent affects contraceptive choice and public health. When we saw…
Jurisdictional Discovery Is Not Bigger in Texas
By Bexis on
One of the stock P-side responses, in the post-Bauman personal jurisdiction environment, to a jurisdictionally-based motion to dismiss is to seek “jurisdictional discovery” – the more onerous the better – in an attempt both to slow the often-inevitable dismissal and also to drive up the nuisance value of the case. That’s the main reason that on our personal jurisdiction cheat sheet we note when jurisdictional discovery is denied.…
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Whaley Redux: S.D. Cal. Conflates Innovator Liability with Personal Jurisdiction
By Rachel B. Weil on
We are trying very hard not to bore everyone silly with endless discussion of our puppy-to-be, almost certainly interesting only to us. But we are failing. So, briefly, we comment that we met the whole spectacular litter last week – eight gorgeous butterballs. Five are white, and three are now black but will probably end…
California Court Overreaches on Personal Jurisdiction
By Bexis on
Whaley v. Merck & Co., 2022 WL 1153151 (S.D. Cal. April 12, 2022), is an ugly example of overly grasping personal jurisdiction permitted in the service of facilitating an even worse overreach by a state’s substantive law. We’ve repeatedly criticized the substantive theory – innovator liability – because (among other things) it exposes manufacturers to liability for claimed defects in competing generic drugs from which the defendants received no benefit (quite the opposite), and did not control what their competitors did. Indeed, innovator liability strays so far from traditional product liability that it creates personal jurisdictional problems – since the target defendant often has no jurisdictional contacts whatever with the forum state, since it didn’t even sell the product that allegedly caused (very attenuated) harm.…
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California Courts Are At It Again On Personal Jurisdiction
By Steven Boranian on
California’s courts have never met a case they did not like. Or, more precisely, they have never met a case over which they would not exercise jurisdiction if arguably supported by the facts, and even when not supported by the facts. We are exaggerating, of course, but not by much. You will recall that the…
Acquisition of Raw Materials does not Support Personal Jurisdiction
By Stephen McConnell on
This is called the Drug and Device Law blog, but every once in a while we discuss cases that involve neither drugs nor devices. Usually that is because those cases offer lessons applicable in our subject matter area. Or – and this is a confession – sometimes those cases are simply fun. For example, we…
New Mexico Rejects Corporate Registration as Basis for Personal Jurisdiction
By Stephen McConnell on
New Mexico calls itself the Land of Enchantment, and with good reason. Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands National Monument, the Albuquerque Balloon Festival, the ski slopes of Taos, and Chaco Culture National Historic Park are all splendid visual treasures. A green chili burger is a lovely work of art. And there is a reason all that…
New York Rejects General Jurisdiction by Consent to Service
By Michelle Yeary on
Today’s decision strays from the field of prescription drug/device law, but we take this detour because Aybar v. Aybar, 2021 N.Y. LEXIS 2134 (N.Y. Ct. App. Oct. 7, 2021) is an important jurisdictional decision – one with over 100 years of legal precedent to sort out.
Plaintiffs were involved in an automobile accident in…