Bristol-Myers Squibb One Year Later

BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB ONE YEAR LATER

Pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, every litigant is entitled to due process of law – a fair and equal adjudication of its dispute. Since 1945 and the United States Supreme Court’s decision in International Shoe, a key component of such due process and “fair play” is the notion that a defendant will only be haled into court in a state where the defendant has had “minimum contacts.” Unfortunately, the fact specific inquiry required to evaluate such contacts has long been fraught with both theoretical and practical problems – how significant must such contacts be before it is fair for a defendant to be sued in a forum?

With the rise of mass tort litigation in the past 50 years, plaintiffs and their lawyers have at times chosen to take advantage of this uncertain jurisprudence (and some judges’ reluctance to enforce jurisdictional defenses) to aggregate claims in areas of the country where counsel believe they may have a strategic advantage – either because of perceived friendly state law, receptive judges, or generous juries.

Certain jurisdictions have fallen out of favor with plaintiffs’ counsel – Mississippi for instance was one of the largest mass tort venues in the country until the Mississippi Legislature passed significant tort reform legislation 15 years ago.[2] Since then, the number of mass torts filed in Mississippi has dwindled to nearly zero. Undeterred, plaintiffs have looked for and found new hospitable jurisdictions to call home – including certain venues in California, Missouri, and Pennsylvania. Claims have increasingly been filed by plaintiffs from other states who have no connection to these forums.

The United States Supreme Court has taken steps over the last few years to curb flagrant forum shopping by clarifying the jurisdictional due process protections for defendants. Most recently, in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of Calif., the Supreme Court affirmed that “[i]n order for a court to exercise specific jurisdiction over a claim, there must be an ‘affiliation between the forum and the underlying controversy, principally, [an] activity or an occurrence that takes place in the forum State.’”[3]

A number of questions still remain post-BMS. What connections between a defendant and a particular forum are sufficient to convey specific jurisdiction? Does the defendant’s forum conduct have to be the “but for” cause of the plaintiff’s injury? Do the BMS jurisdictional limits extend to class actions?

The past year has seen several federal and state courts evaluate personal jurisdiction in light of BMS. While some courts have read BMS strictly and dismissed out-of-state plaintiffs with no connection to the forum, other courts continue to stretch, finding even tenuous relationships sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction.

1. THE BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB DECISION

Bristol-Myers is a pharmaceutical company incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in New York.[4] Bristol-Myers manufactured and marketed Plavix, a blood thinning medication.[5] Between 2006 and 2012, Bristol-Myers sold nearly 187 million Plavix pills across the country, including in California.[6] As with all medications, Plavix had potential side-effects – including prolonged bleeding, heart attack, and stroke – and Bristol-Myers faced litigation from patients who allegedly experienced those side effects. In 2013, an MDL was formed by the JPML, consolidating all federal Plavix litigation before Judge Freda Wolfson in New Jersey.[7]

Despite the consolidation of claims in New Jersey, lawyers representing 678 Plavix users sued Bristol-Myers in Superior Court in San Francisco, California.[8] Of the 678 plaintiffs, only 86 were California residents; the remaining 592 traveled to California from 33 other states.[9] The 678 plaintiffs intentionally filed eight separate complaints. If plaintiffs had aggregated their claims into one master complaint, they would have run afoul of the Class Action Fairness Act, which makes any mass action with more than 100 plaintiffs immediately removable to federal court. The plaintiffs sued McKesson, a California distributor of Plavix, in order to defeat diversity.

Bristol-Myers moved to quash service of summons on the claims of the non-California residents for lack of personal jurisdiction.[10] The trial court denied the motion and was affirmed by the California Court of Appeals and the California Supreme Court. Specifically, the California Supreme Court found that Bristol-Myers’ sale of Plavix in California was a sufficient enough contact with the forum to justify plaintiffs from all over the country bringing suit against Bristol-Myer in California.[11] The court also noted that Bristol-Myers had not argued that California was an inconvenient or unduly burdensome place to litigate these claims.[12]

Bristol-Myers’ petition for certiorari was granted. Interestingly, in its petition for cert, Bristol-Myers did not argue that California was an inconvenient forum, nor could it legitimately take such a position considering its Plavix sales volume, office presence, and the acknowledgement that it would still need to defend against claims brought by the California residents.[13] Instead, Bristol-Myers argued that California’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over non-residents claims’ violated Bristol-Myers’ due process rights because California state courts are a plaintiff-friendly, defendant-hostile venue.[14] Bristol-Myers argued that “Plaintiffs should not be allowed to take their case to the most hospitable forum they can think of” nor should Bristol-Myers alternatively be required to withdraw from the California commercial market to avoid the risk of being sued there by out-of-state plaintiffs.[15]

The Supreme Court agreed and reversed. The mere fact the “other plaintiffs were prescribed, obtained, and ingested Plavix in California – and allegedly sustained the same injuries as did the non-residents – does not allow the State to assert specific jurisdiction over the nonresidents’ claims.”[16] Missing was “a connection between the forum and the specific claims at issue.”[17] The Supreme Court observed that “[Bristol-Myers Squibb] did not develop Plavix in California, did not create a marketing strategy for Plavix in California, and did not manufacture, label, package, or work on the regulatory approval of the product in California.”[18]

In so holding, the focus of the Supreme Court’s analysis was not whether it was overly burdensome to submit BMS to jurisdiction in California.[19] The focus of its analysis was that it was unfair to require BMS to submit to jurisdiction of a foreign venue with respect to claims having no independent connection to that venue. Interstate sovereignty concerns and accompanying Fourteenth Amendment protections are “decisive” even when a defendant may not face any burden at all in defending in the forum.[20]

POST-BMS EVALUATION OF PERSONAL JURISDICTION

Following BMS, defendants’ personal jurisdiction defenses were reinvigorated. Across the country and throughout litigation hotspots, defendants have renewed their requests for foreign plaintiff claims to be dismissed.

1. MISSOURI

Missouri state courts domiciled in St. Louis have been reported as the “new hot spot for litigation tourists” because of a reputation for “fast trials, favorable rulings, and big awards.”[21] As a result, numerous out-of-state plaintiffs have flocked to St. Louis to adjudicate their claims. Recent Missouri appellate court rulings suggest, however, that out-of-state plaintiffs may no longer be welcome.

a. Essure Litigation

In Johnson v. Bayer, 69 plaintiffs from 27 different states sued Bayer in Missouri state court in St. Louis alleging Bayer’s Essure product, a permanent birth control device, caused them harm.[22] Of the 69 plaintiffs, only four alleged that they were citizens of Missouri or had their implant procedure performed in Missouri.[23]

Bayer removed the cases to the Eastern District of Missouri and sought dismissal of the non-Missouri plaintiffs’ claims. Plaintiffs argued that courts sitting in Missouri had specific jurisdiction over Bayer because Missouri was the site of several Essure clinical trials; Bayer worked on regulatory approval for Essure in Missouri; and because St. Louis was one of eight cities targeted as part of a broader marketing plan to increase sales and revenue.[24]

The Johnson court rejected these claims as appropriate grounds for establishing personal jurisdiction, finding that the individual plaintiffs’ claims were too attenuated from those activities to provide specific, case-linked personal jurisdiction.[25] Specifically, the Johnson court found the fact that Bayer marketed Essure in St. Louis had no bearing on non-residents who did not see that marketing, were not prescribed Essure in Missouri, did not purchase Essure in Missouri, and were not allegedly injured by Essure in Missouri.[26] Similarly, none of the non-resident plaintiffs were participants in any of the Missouri clinical trials and did not allege that they relied on those trials as part of their decision making in deciding to use Essure.[27]

b. Talc Litigation

In Estate of Fox v. Johnson & Johnson, 65 plaintiffs sued Johnson & Johnson and Imerys Talc America in a state court in St. Louis alleging that their use of Johnson & Johnson’s talc baby powder had led them to develop ovarian cancer.[28] Of the 65 plaintiffs, only two were Missouri residents.[29] Defendants moved to dismiss the claims of the non-Missouri residents for lack of personal jurisdiction. The Missouri state court denied defendants’ motion finding that each non-resident need not establish an individual basis for jurisdiction so long as a defendant has sufficient minimum contacts with the state and that defendants’ sale of body powders in Missouri “more than adequately” satisfied minimum contacts.[30]

The trial court subsequently selected Ms. Jacqueline Fox, an Alabama resident, to be tried as a single-plaintiff trial.[31] A jury found for Ms. Fox’s estate and against J&J, awarding $10 million in compensatory damages and $62 million in punitive damages.[32] J&J appealed the judgment, again asserting a personal jurisdiction defense now bolstered by the BMS decision.[33] Plaintiff argued personal jurisdiction was appropriate not only because of J&J’s significant commercial contacts with Missouri but plaintiff also sought to reopen the proof to introduce evidence that J&J’s body powders were produced, packaged, and distributed by a Missouri company.[34] The Missouri Court of Appeals denied both arguments, finding that under BMS, there were no connections between Missouri, J&J and the non-Missouri plaintiffs and that “[w]hen there is no such connection, specific jurisdiction is lacking regardless of the extent of a defendant’s unconnected activities in the state.”[35] The $72 million judgment was vacated and the case dismissed.[36]

Just a few weeks later, in Slemp v. Johnson & Johnson, a state court in St. Louis was faced with the same question. Ms. Slemp was from Virginia, she had used baby powder in Virginia, had allegedly developed cancer in Virginia, and had received her medical care in Virginia. Nevertheless, she sued in Missouri. The case was tried for 17 days, and the jury returned a plaintiff verdict of $5.4 million in compensatory damages and $105 million in punitive damages. Defendants filed a post-trial motion, again arguing that the Missouri state court lacked jurisdiction. Plaintiffs argued, as they had unsuccessfully tried in Fox, that Missouri-based PharmaTech, a non-party to the litigation, participated in the labeling, packaging, and distribution of J&J’s talc body powders and this “connection” was enough to establish jurisdiction in Missouri. The trial judge agreed and found that it had jurisdiction over the defendants because “Defendants engaged in relevant acts within the State of Missouri, including enlisting a Missouri company…to manufacture, mislabel, and package. . .the very products which caused injury to the Plaintiffs.”[37] The decision is currently on appeal to the Missouri Court of Appeals.

Most recently, the Missouri Court of Appeals again reversed a St. Louis state court judge’s decision to exercise jurisdiction over a non-Missouri talc plaintiff. In Ristesund v. Johnson & Johnson, a South Dakota plaintiff sued Johnson & Johnson for talc related claims in Missouri state court in St. Louis.[38] The defendants filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, which was denied.[39] The case went to trial in May 2016 resulting in a verdict for the plaintiff.[40] On appeal, the plaintiff conceded that BMS controlled.[41] The plaintiff argued, however, as in Fox that she should be permitted to reopen her proof to introduce evidence of a connection between her claims and a Missouri-domiciled contractor of the defendants.[42] The Missouri Court of Appeals again refused, holding that the plaintiff knew of the jurisdictional requirements when she filed her case and “we are not persuaded that the law either warrants or permits us to now return this matter to the trial court for a ‘do-over.’”[43]

2. CALIFORNIA

In California state court in San Francisco, plaintiffs have seized upon the “develop…create…manufacture, label, [or] package” language in BMS as a blueprint for establishing personal jurisdiction over a nonresident plaintiff’s claims.

In DellaCamera v. DePuy Orthopaedics, the California Superior Court for San Francisco County held that it had specific jurisdiction over the claims of a Connecticut-based plaintiff against several foreign defendants because the defendants had entered into consulting contracts with two California-based surgeons who assisted in the design of defendants’ hip implant device.[44] The Connecticut plaintiff had no connection

to California – the device was implanted and explanted in Connecticut, and she received all of her related medical care in Connecticut.[45] However, the plaintiffs presented evidence that DePuy and Johnson & Johnson chose to collaborate with Dr. Thomas P. Schmalzried and Dr. Thomas P. Vail, both California residents, regarding the design of defendants’ metal hip implant, and service agreements between the defendants and surgeons confirmed that these individuals were designing surgeons.[46] Defendants did not deny their relationship with the two surgeons, but argued that their role in the design was not enough to establish personal jurisdiction in California. The California Superior Court disagreed, finding that “a significant portion of the design work for the DePuy ASR hip implant was either conducted in California or otherwise tied to California, and the alleged defective ‘metal-on-metal’ design of the ASR implant is a focal point of this lawsuit.”[47] Relying on the jurisdictional blueprint language from BMS, the court found that this “distinguishe[d] the case from the situation in BMS, where the U.S. Supreme Court found that the nonresident defendant did not develop, manufacture, label, package, or create a marketing strategy for the drug in the forum state, and where it was not alleged that the nonresident defendant engaged in relevant acts together with the California resident defendant.”[48]

3. PENNSYLVANIA

In 1992, the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas established its Complex Litigation Center designed exclusively for the administration and adjudication of complex, multi-filed mass torts. When it was first established, the Complex Litigation Center’s procedures actively encouraged out-of-state plaintiffs to file claims in the Center’s Mass Tort Programs.[49] Changes to the discovery rules in the Mass Tort programs were implemented in 2012 to limit out-of-state filings, but Philadelphia’s Mass Tort Program remains a hub for foreign plaintiff litigation.

After BMS¸ several defendants have sought to dismiss cases pending in in the Mass Tort program for lack of jurisdiction over foreign plaintiff’s claims. In the Pelvic Mesh Litigation Mass Tort program, Ethicon, Inc. filed a motion asking for dismissal of more than 100 cases involving non-Pennsylvania plaintiffs. Ethicon argued that Pennsylvania did not have general jurisdiction over it, a New Jersey company, and the foreign plaintiffs’ claims had no ties to Pennsylvania to establish specific jurisdiction. The court disagreed and found that because Ethicon used a Pennsylvania materials supplier, Pennsylvania had specific jurisdiction over Ethicon and venue was proper.[50] Ethicon has appealed this decision.

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania (the Pennsylvania appellate court) has also recently upheld a pelvic mesh verdict on similar grounds. In Hammons v. Ethicon,[51] an Indiana woman sued Ethicon in Philadelphia alleging that its Prolift pelvic mesh product was defective. Following a three-week trial, the jury found in favor of the plaintiff.[52] On appeal, Ethicon argued that under BMS, personal jurisdiction did not exist in Pennsylvania.[53] The Pennsylvania appellate court disagreed, finding:

The connection between Ethicon and Pennsylvania is considerably stronger than the connection between Bristol–Myers and California. Ethicon supervised the design and manufacturing process of pelvic mesh in Pennsylvania in collaboration with Secant Medical, Inc., a Bucks County company. Ethicon also worked closely with an Allentown, Pennsylvania physician, Vincent Lucente, M.D., in developing Prolift. Both of these factors support the exercise of specific jurisdiction over Ethicon in Pennsylvania.[54]

The Pennsylvania appellate court’s ruling is arguably inconsistent with BMS considering that the Supreme Court had rejected a similar argument that Bristol-Myers use of a California distributor was sufficient to establish jurisdiction in California. On July 3, 2018, Ethicon filed a Petition for Reargument and the matter remains pending.

4. ILLINOIS

The District Court of Illinois applied BMS to dismiss a foreign plaintiff’s claim in Wilson v. Nouvag. A Virginia plaintiff sued Nouvag AG, a Swiss company, in the Northern District of Illinois alleging that Nouvag’s morcellator product was defectively designed and had contributed to the spread of the plaintiff’s deceased wife’s cancer.[55] Plaintiff also sued the Illinois-based U.S. distributor of the morcellator. Id. Nouvag moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.[56]

Decedent’s surgery and the use of the morcellator all occurred in Virginia.[57] Nouvag is not registered or licensed to do business in Illinois; it does not itself do business in Illinois; and it does not have a registered agent in Illinois.[58] The Swiss company did not maintain any offices, employees, or a phone listing in Illinois; nor did it advertise in Illinois, own property in Illinois, or enter into any contracts with Illinois companies.[59]

Nouvag did have an Illinois-based distributor that was licensed, thorough a Nouvag subsidiary, to sell the morcellator in question. Wilson argued that the connection between Nouvag and the Illinois-based distributor was sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction over Nouvag in Illinois. Wilson argued that Nouvag intentionally directed distribution of its morcellator into the United States through an Illinois company and knew its product would be sold and distributed through Illinois to customers in the U.S.[60] In addition, Wilson argued that when Nouvag sought FDA clearance to sell the morcellator in the U.S., it specifically noted its intention to distribute the morcellator through its Illinois affiliate.[61] Essentially, Wilson argued that by placing the morcellator in the stream of commerce into the U.S. through Illinois, Nouvag had established sufficient contacts with Illinois to bestow specific jurisdiction in Illinois courts.

In rejecting this stream of commerce argument, the Wilson court held that “the fact that Nouvag AG’s customer distributed its product through a subsidiary based in Illinois is not enough to indicate that Nouvag AG purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities within Illinois.”[62] Additionally, the Wilson court relied heavily on Bristol-Myers Squib and found that plaintiff’s claims lacked any connection to Illinois. Because Nouvag did not design, manufacture, label, or sell its morcellators in Illinois and the decedent was not injured in Illinois, there was no conduct related to plaintiff’s claims sufficient to establish specific personal jurisdiction over Nouvag in Illinois.

APPLICATION OF BMS TO CLASS ACTIONS

An unanswered question from BMS is whether the same jurisdictional limits apply in class actions. BMS was decided in the context of a mass tort, not a class action under Rule 23. A fair reading of BMS is that the Supreme Court is concerned with defendants being sued in jurisdictions having no connection with to the plaintiffs’ specific claims. The same logic would seem to apply in nationwide class actions in venues where there is no general jurisdiction over the defendants. In her dissent, Justice Sotamayor noted that “the Court’s opinion in this case will make it profoundly difficult for plaintiffs who are injured in different States by a defendant’s nationwide course of conduct to sue that defendant in a single, consolidated action.”[63] On the other hand, the Supreme Court’s concerns may not attach in the same manner to federal class actions – federal courts are assumed, regardless of where they sit, to represent the same federal sovereignty. As such, where a federal court presides over litigation involving a federal question, the interstate sovereignty concerns prevalent in BMS may not hold as much sway post-BMS. District courts have split on this issue.

For instance, in Sloan v. General Motors, LLC, a California district court permitted General Motors to be sued by named plaintiffs from dozens of foreign states in a putative nationwide class action asserting a federal claim under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.[64] The court held that “without those interstate federalism concerns, the due process analysis falls back on whether the maintenance of the suit…offend[s] traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice” focusing on the defendant’s more general contacts with the state and the burden placed on the defendant to adjudicate in a particular forum.[65] The court found that General Motors routinely and purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting business in California sufficient to establish jurisdiction and that General Motors had failed to adequately articulate why it would face undue hardship in defending the claims in California.[66] That the nonresident plaintiffs’ claims did not arise out of General Motor’s suit-related contacts – a fatal flaw under a BMS analysis – was not dispositive.[67] Instead, the Sloan court found that California could exercise “pendant” jurisdiction over General Motors – essentially because the court clearly had jurisdiction over the California residents’ claims and those claims were based on the same set facts and issues as the non-California plaintiffs’ claims, then it would be judicially economical for the California court to exercise jurisdiction over all claims against General Motors.[68]

The federal decisions are mixed. Some district courts have similarly held that BMS has no application in the class action context.[69] Other district courts have squarely rejected this approach and have concluded that “Bristol-Myers applies with equal force in the class action context.”[70] In Chavez v. Church & Dwight Co., the defendant, relying on BMS, argued that because the defendant was not subject to general jurisdiction in Illinois, it may be sued in Illinois only by consumers whose claims arise out of defendants’ contacts with Illinois, i.e., those who purchased or consumed defendant’s nutritional supplement in Illinois.[71] The Illinois district court agreed and dismissed all non-Illinois based claims – “Nothing in Bristol-Myers suggests that its basic holding is inapplicable to class actions; rather, the Court announced a general principle – that due process requires a connection between the forum and the specific claims at issue.”[72] The District of Arizona, albeit in a footnote, has concluded similarly.[73]

A hybrid approach was taken by the New Jersey District Court in Chernus v. Logitech.[74] In Chernus, the court found that the BMS jurisdictional mandates do apply, but only as it relates to the jurisdictional connections to the named class plaintiffs.[75] The court found that the contacts between the unnamed class members and the forum were irrelevant to the question of specific jurisdiction since they are not actual parties to the litigation absent class certification.[76] The court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss as to a Pennsylvania named-plaintiff because there was no connection between the claims of the Pennsylvania plaintiff, the defendant, and New Jersey.[77] The remaining defendants’ motion was denied, however, as to the claims of the New Jersey-based plaintiff. Ruling was reserved on whether the New Jersey plaintiff could maintain a putative nationwide class action for non-residents.[78]

If district courts begin following the Chavez approach, where state-specific plaintiffs can only bring class actions on behalf of class members from that particular state, defendants run the risk of facing state-by-state class actions. This result could be more problematic for defendants than helpful. If a defendant obtains dismissal of nonresident plaintiffs based on specific jurisdiction, those plaintiffs could simply return to their home states and file multiple class actions in district courts throughout the country. It appears fairly certain that personal jurisdiction would exist over the defendant in an action brought in the plaintiff’s home state in the forum where the underlying controversy arose. Instead of being faced with a single centralized mass tort proceeding, defendants would now be faced with defending dozens across the country. Understandably, defendants wish aggregation of plaintiffs’ claims to be limited to jurisdictions where defendants have fairly established a presence sufficient to establish jurisdiction. Defendants may be forced to choose, however, between the dangers of aggregating multiple-state plaintiffs in an unfavorable forum versus the exposure to a dozen separate state class actions and potentially a chaotic and unmanageable mixture of inconsistent schedules and conflicting and irreconcilable legal rulings.

CONCLUSION

While BMS is a step in the right direction, based on early responses at the trial court level, it is clear that battles remain over whether a defendant’s attenuated contacts to a particular forum can support personal jurisdiction.


[1] Mr. Swearingen is an attorney with Butler Snow LLP. Butler Snow has represented several of the defendants mentioned in this article and was trial counsel in the Slemp and Hammons cases discussed.

[2] David Maron & Walker W. (Bill) Jones, Taming an Elephant: A Closer Look at Mass Tort Screening and the Impact of Mississippi Tort Reforms, 26 Miss. C. L. Rev. 253, 256 (2007).

[3] 137 S. Ct. at 1781 (citing Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915, 919 (2011)).

[4] Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 137 S. Ct. at 1778.

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] In re Plavix Mktg., Sales Practices & Prods. Liab. Litig., 923 F. Supp. 2d 1376, 1377 (J.P.M.L. 2013).

[8] Bristol-Myers, 137 S. Ct. at 1778.

[9] Id.

[10] Id.

[11] Id. at 889.

[12] Id.

[13] Petition for Writ of Certiorari at 30, Bristol Myers, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (No. 16-466).

[14] Id. at 31-33.

[15] Id. at 32.

[16] Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 137 S. Ct. at 1781.

[17] Id.

[18] 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017).

[19] Id. at 1780.

[20] Id. at 1780-1781.

[21] Tim Bross, Welcome to St. Louis, the New Hot Spot for Litigation Tourists, Bloomberg (Sept. 29, 2016) (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/plaintiffslawyers-st-louis).

[22] 2018 WL 999972 at *1 (E.D. Missouri Feb. 21, 2018).

[23] Id.

[24] Johnson, 2018 WL 999972 at *3.

[25] Id. at *4.

[26] Id.

[27] Id.

[28] Estate of Fox v. Johnson & Johnson, 539 S.W.3d 48, 50 (Mo. Ct. App. 2017).

[29] Id.

[30] Id.

[31] Id.

[32] Id.

[33] Id. at 51.

[34] Id.

[35] Id. at 51 (citing Bristol-Myers Squibb, 137 S. Ct. at 1781).

[36] Id.

[37] Lois Slemp v. Johnson & Johnson et al., No. 1422-CC09326-02 (Mo. Cir. Ct., Nov. 29, 2017).

[38] 2018 WL 3193652 (Mo. Ct. App. June 29, 2018).

[39] Id.

[40] Id.

[41] Id. at *2.

[42] Id. at *2-3.

[43] Id. at *5.

[44] DellaCamera et ux. v. DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. et al., No. CJC-10-004649, Proceeding No. 4649 (Calif. Super. Ct., San Francisco Cty. Nov. 1, 2017).

[45] Id. at 6-7.

[46] Id. at 4.

[47] Id. at 4.

[48] Id.

[49] Herron, Hon. John W., General Court Regulation No. 2012-01 (Feb. 2012). http://www.courts.phila.gov/pdf/regs/2012/cpajgcr2012-01.pdf.

[50] See Order, In re: Pelvic Mesh Litig., No. 829, at 1 (Phila. Ct. Comm. Pleas Dec. 4, 2017).

[51] Hammons v. Ethicon, Inc., 2018 WL 3030754, *9 (Pa. Super. Ct. June 19, 2018).

[52] Id. at *2-4.

[53] Id. at *5-6.

[54] Hammons¸ 2018 WL 3030754 at *9.

[55] Wilson v. Nouvag, 2018 WL 1565602 at *1 (N.D. Illinois Mar. 30, 2018).

[56] Id.

[57] Wilson, 2018 WL 1565602 at *1.

[58] Id. at *3.

[59] Id.

[60] Id. at *4 (internal citations omitted).

[61] Id.

[62] Id. at *5.

[63] Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 137 S. Ct. at 1784.

[64] Sloan v. General Motors LLC, 287 F. Supp. 3d 840, 859 (N.D. Cal. 2018).

[65] Id.

[66] Id. at 860-861.

[67] Id.

[68] Id.

[69] See e.g. In re Chinese-Manufactured DryWall Prods., Civ. Act. MDL No. 09-2047, 2017 WL 5971622, at *13-16 (E.D. La. Nov. 30, 2017) (finding Bristol-Myers to be inapplicable to class actions, in part, because class actions have due process safeguards under Rule 23 that mass actions lack); Fitzhenry-Russell v. Dr. Pepper Snapple Grp., Inc., 2017 WL 4224723, at *5 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 22, 2017) (holding that “Bristol-Myers is meaningfully distinguishable based on that case concerning a mass tort action, in which each plaintiff was a named plaintiff”).

[70] Practice Mgmt. Support Servs. v. Cirque Du Soleil, Inc., 2018 WL 1255021, at *15 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 12, 2018).

[71] Id. at *10.

[72] Chavez v. Church & Dwight Co., 2018 WL 2238191, at *10–11 (N.D. Ill. May 16, 2018) (internal citations omitted).

[73] Wenokur v. AXA Equitable Life Ins. Co., 2017 WL 4357916, at *4 fn. 4 (D. Ariz. Oct. 2, 2017) (Citing BMS, the court noted that “it lacks personal jurisdiction over the claims of putative class members with no connection to Arizona and therefore would not be able to certify a nationwide class.”).

[74] Chernus v. Logitech, Inc., 2018 WL 1981481, at *3 (D.N.J. Apr. 27, 2018).

[75] Id.

[76] Id.

[77] Id. at *6.

[78] Id. at *7-8.

Finis