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Supreme Court Limits Forum Shopping with Plavix Lawsuit Decision
Class action plaintiffs often aggregate their claims to sue a defendant based on that defendant's tortious course of conduct, on the basis that it has adversely affected all plaintiffs in a similar fashion. That's basically the textbook definition of a class-action lawsuit. But on June 19, the U.S. Supreme Court upended years of jurisprudence to hand corporations a gift: a far more stringent definition of specific jurisdiction that will force plaintiffs to bring suit in multiple state courts rather than join their claims to those in far-flung jurisdictions.
In Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, 2017 U.S. LEXIS 3873 (U.S. 6/19/17), the court held that a corporation that engages in a nationwide course of conduct cannot be sued in a state court by anyone not injured within that jurisdiction, unless the corporation has significant contacts there, such as conducting much of its business therein. Eight justices formed the majority, with only one, Sonya Sotomayor, dissenting.
The BMS case was brought by more than 600 users of the drug Plavix against its manufacturer, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMS), in state court in San Francisco. Eighty-six of the plaintiffs were California residents, but the remaining 592 plaintiffs were residents of 33 other states. All plaintiffs asserted 13 claims under California law, though none of the out-of-state plaintiffs had any relationship to California: They did not buy Plavix there, were not prescribed it there, were not treated with it there, etc. The claims included negligent misrepresentation, misleading advertising and other product–liablity-related causes of action.
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