Last week, in Timbs v. Indiana, ___ S. Ct. ___, 2019 WL 691578 (U.S. Feb. 20, 2019), the Court unanimously held that the Excessive Fines Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment applies to the states:
Under the Eighth Amendment, “[e]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual
We’ve blogged a number of times about the Dormant Commerce Clause (“DCC”) as an additional basis for bolstering both preemption and Due Process arguments. Here’s another prescription drug-based example.
The state of New York decided to impose a special tax on opioid manufacturers to finance various responses to the so-called “opioid epidemic.” The tax came
Here’s another guest post on the Dormant Commerce Clause by our guest guru on that subject, Dick Dean over at Tucker Ellis. He reports on another possible use for the Dormant Commerce Clause that could provide a win for the our side in an innovator liability situation. As always our guest bloggers deserve 100%
We bloggers don’t generally consider the Drug and Device Law sandbox to extend to illegal drugs. We regard that as a completely separate can of worms. But what of a drug – like marijuana – that’s in between being legal and being illegal? In an increasing number of states, marijuana’s current situation is a bit
Sure, it was enjoyable to read In re DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., Pinnacle Hip Implant Product Liability Litigation, ___ F.3d ___, 2018 WL 1954759 (5th Cir. April 25, 2018) (“Pinnacle Hip”), to see plaintiffs’ counsel hoisted on their own petard of improper and prejudicial evidence and arguments. But there’s more to Pinnacle Hip
We’ll be hitting all the Presidents’ Day sales today, but something tells me we’ll be disappointed because we won’t be able to buy, beg, borrow, or steal a new one. So we keep trying.
With plaintiffs desperate to find some way to continue pursuing aggravated, aggregated product liability litigation in their favorite venues after Daimler
This is a follow-up to our post last week on the Missouri Supreme Court’s momentous personal jurisdiction decision in State ex rel. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. Dolan, ___ S.W.3d ___, 2017 WL 770977 (Mo. Feb. 28, 2017) (“NSRC”). We stated last week, and we continue to believe, that NSRC will ultimately kill litigation tourism in Missouri.
However, it won’t be easy. Nothing ever is against the rich and entrenched litigation industry.
As we would expect, the other side is talking out both sides of its mouth about NSRC.
On one hand, in the ongoing legislative push for a statutory fix to the bizarre and unfair way that courts have interpreted Missouri’s venue and joinder rules (see our post here), those supporting the other side of the “v.” are already claiming that the venue/joinder reform bill (H.B. 460 – which will be on the House floor this week) is no longer necessary; that NSRC supposedly “fixed” everything.
On the other hand, and essentially simultaneously, in the multi-plaintiff mass tort litigation that is the main reason tort reform is so desperately needed, they’re doing the opposite – trying to get around NSRC by claiming “pendent party” jurisdiction as a result of the very same venue/joinder problems that venue/joinder reform and H.B. 460 is intended to fix.
Talk is cheap. Watch what they do, not what they say.
They can’t have it both ways. In fact, they can’t have it either way. The plaintiffs’ first position is garbage, and the second is devoid of legal support.
For the reasons stated in our original post, H.B.460 remains necessary after NSRC. NSRC established that personal jurisdiction over non-resident corporations by non-resident plaintiffs over injuries not arising in Missouri is unconstitutional under the Due Process clause. There is no general personal jurisdiction because the defendant is not “at home.” There is no specific personal jurisdiction because out-of-state injuries to out-of-state plaintiffs are not “related to” a defendant’s Missouri activities. There is no “consent” merely by registering to do business.
But as good as it was, NSRC was not a mass tort case. Rather, it was an individual litigation tourist plaintiff suing a single non-resident corporation. NSRC thus had no occasion to address either the 99-plaintiff misjoined tort complaints that have become the bane of Missouri product liability practice or the 99-defendant complaints that are typical of asbestos (and some other) product liability litigation. Eliminating those abuses are at the core of H.B. 460, meaning that the reforms proposed in H.B. 460 remain every bit as necessary as before. As we discussed, the court of appeals in Barron v. Abbott Laboratories, Inc., ___ S.W.3d ___, 2016 WL 6596091, at *13 (Mo. App. Nov. 8, 2016), invited the legislature to correct the venue/joinder rules, and that is exactly what H.B. 460 will do.
It’s been two years since the First District California Court of Appeals issued its ill-founded decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 175 Cal. Rptr. 3d 412 (Cal. App. 2014), which used specific personal jurisdiction to accomplish what the United States Supreme Court had, only six months earlier, condemned as “grasping” and “exorbitant” when attempted through general personal jurisdiction in Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746 (2014). We immediately blogged about that decision in our “Hotel California” post – describing the California court’s rationale in considerable detail.
Fortunately, the California Supreme Court promptly granted an appeal, which we duly noted here, of the following two questions: “(1) whether after Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 746, 187 L.Ed.2d 624 (2014), general jurisdiction exists; and (2) whether specific jurisdiction exists.” Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. S.C., 337 P.3d 1158 (Cal. 2014).
Thereafter “prompt” dropped out of the lexicon.
But today the wait is over. The California high court has answered the two questions “no” and “yes.” This latter ruling – a 4-3 decision − is almost certain to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, as it creates a form of “specific” jurisdiction in mass tort cases that is every bit as “grasping” and “exorbitant” as that rejected as a Due Process violation in Bauman. See Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court (Anderson), S221038, slip op. (Cal. Aug. 29, 2016) (hereafter Anderson). Anderson involved mass tort litigation in California against a defendant that was neither headquartered nor incorporated in California, nor had any peculiar ties to the state. The plaintiffs in question were also nonresidents of California, so the jurisdictional questions boiled down to whether California can constitutionally provide a forum for non-resident plaintiffs to sue a non-resident defendants.
This is quite apart from the practical question of why, given the severe funding crisis everyone recognizes as facing the California judiciary, California taxpayers should be burdened by thousands (or more) of suits by non-residents against non-residents.
It has been a little over two years since the Supreme Court issued its decision in Bauman v. AG Daimler, and, from our perspective, its impact has been significant, even earth shaking (no pun intended, and we have a San Francisco office and certainly would not make light of earthquakes). We previously discussed Bauman’s impact on the analysis of personal jurisdiction on several occasions, in the context of notable decisions, good and bad (thank you, California), and in the hotly contested area of consent through registration to do business in a state, here.
Our breaking news is one of the biggest post-Bauman mass tort jurisdictional wins. The Second Circuit held – in the context of asbestos mass tort litigation – that a company with “continuous and systematic” business in a state (Connecticut) can’t be sued by out-of-state litigation tourist plaintiffs over out-of-state asbestos exposure. Brown v. Lockheed-Martin Corp., 814 F.3d 619, No. 14‐4083, slip op. (2d Cir. Feb. 18, 2016). Having a major facility in the jurisdiction, and acquisition of a major in-state operating subsidiary, along with “significant” revenue wasn’t enough for the defendant to be “at home.” Id. at 18-25. Compared to the defendant’s total activities, there was nothing “exceptional.” Id.
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We recently brought you the breaking news that the Arizona Supreme Court has adopted the learned intermediary doctrine in prescription drug cases. The case is Watts v. Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp., No. cv-15-0065-PR, 2016 WL 237777 (Ariz. Jan. 21, 1016), and the Arizona Supreme Court’s unequivocal adoption of the doctrine allows us to check one more state off the list—the number stand at 37 states (plus D.C.) whose highest courts have adopted the LID. (See our headcount here).
Having now had the opportunity to take a deeper dive, we can say that the Watts opinion is a solid endorsement of the learned intermediary doctrine and an artful explanation of the doctrine’s underpinnings. But before we get there, we note that Bexis filed an amicus brief in support of adopting the doctrine. On the other side, the lead author of an amicus brief for the trial lawyers was former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Stanley G. Feldman. Bexis versus the former Chief? We like those odds. We actually worked in Phoenix for a year following law school and became acquainted with Chief Justice Feldman while we clerked in the chambers next door. This was in the mid-1990s, and while he was a polarizing figure even then because of his background as a plaintiffs’ advocate, we came to know him as a brilliant and vigorous individual. On the learned intermediary doctrine, however, we don’t mind saying that the former Chief is wrong and that his successors (and Bexis) got it right.