Coudrain v. Walgreen Co.

2026 IL App (1st) 250614-U
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided February 20, 2026·No. 1-25-0614·Unpublished

Opinion

2026 IL App (1st) 250614-U FIFTH DIVISION

February 20, 2026

No. 1-25-0614

NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).

IN THE

APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST DISTRICT

MARILYN COUDRAIN, as Administrator of the Estate of Ellen ) Smith, et al., )

)

Plaintiff-Appellant, )

) Appeal from the

v. ) Circuit Court of ) Cook County.

WALGREEN CO.; WALGREENS BOOTS ALLIANCE, INC.; ) GLAXOSMITHKLINE, LLC; GLAXOSMITHKLINE HOLDINGS ) (AMERICAS), INC.; PFIZER, INC.; BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM ) No. 23 L 3569 PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.; BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM USA ) CORPORATION; BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM CORPORATION; ) SANOFI-AVENTIS U.S. LLC; and SANOFI US SERVICES, INC., ) Honorable ) Daniel Trevino,

Defendants, ) Judge Presiding.

)

(Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Boehringer Ingelheim ) USA Corporation; Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation; Sanofi-Aventis ) U.S. LLC; and Sanofi U.S. Services, Inc., Defendants-Appellees). )

JUSTICE MIKVA delivered the judgment of the court.

Presiding Justice Mitchell and Justice Wilson concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

¶1 Held: The circuit court did not err in dismissing nonresident plaintiffs’ claims for lack of personal jurisdiction where those claims did not relate to defendants’ contacts with Illinois.

¶2 The question before us is whether the claims of these nonresident plaintiffs, who were not injured in Illinois, can proceed in the Illinois courts against these defendants. It is undisputed that the medication that is alleged to have injured these plaintiffs was not manufactured in Illinois, but plaintiffs point to the fact that defendants utilized certain third-party companies in Illinois to repackage, inspect, and distribute products for nationwide distribution and to sell this same product to other people in Illinois. We hold that our courts do not have jurisdiction over these claims against these defendants for the reasons outlined below and affirm the dismissal of these claims by the circuit court.

¶3 I. BACKGROUND

¶4 The cases in which these appeals are brought are among thousands of individual lawsuits filed in federal and various state courts against the manufacturers and marketers of Zantac, a brand of heartburn medication with the active ingredient of ranitidine. Between August 22, 2022, and September 26, 2022, five lawsuits with over 300 plaintiffs residing in 39 states were filed in Madison County, Illinois. These cases were filed against numerous defendants, some of whom have had the claims against them dismissed or have settled.

¶5 The defendants who are parties to this appeal are Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation, and Boehringer Ingelheim USA Corporation (collectively, Boehringer), and Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC and Sanofi US Services Inc. (collectively, Sanofi). The plaintiffs alleged in their complaint strict product liability, failure to warn, negligent transportation and storage, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, and breach of express and implied warranties—all stemming from their use of Zantac, which was manufactured, marketed, and sold by these defendants and which the plaintiffs alleged caused them cancer. On October 25, 2022, the Illinois Supreme Court consolidated these actions with several other

Illinois cases alleging similar ranitidine-related injuries in Cook County. All multi-plaintiff actions were administratively dismissed, and plaintiffs were instructed to refile individual complaints. This appeal concerns 180 out-of-state plaintiffs, including the first named plaintiff, Marilyn Coudrain, as administrator of the estate of Ellen Smith, who refiled individual actions in Cook County.

¶6 On October 25, 2023, Boehringer, Sanofi, and other defendants who are not parties to this appeal, filed a joint motion under section 2-301 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-301 (West 2022)) to dismiss all non-Illinois plaintiffs’ claims for lack of general and specific jurisdiction. Boehringer and Sanofi argued that the court had no general jurisdiction over them because neither their headquarters nor their principal places of business were in Illinois. They argued that they were not subject to the court’s specific jurisdiction because the plaintiffs were not residents of Illinois, had not purchased or consumed Zantac in Illinois, and were not injured in Illinois.

¶7 After jurisdictional discovery, plaintiffs filed their response on January 10, 2025. They argued that Boehringer and Sanofi “purposefully reached into Illinois with respect to the development, marketing, and sales of their Zantac products.” The plaintiffs pointed to the fact that Boehringer and Sanofi intentionally sought out and contracted with Walgreens and other Illinois corporations for product sales and distribution, and that each plaintiff bought their Zantac from a Walgreens store. The gist of their argument was that Boehringer utilized several Illinois companies to help it “market, promote, and enter into contracts for selling Zantac to Walgreens, an Illinois company, for sales nationally.”

¶8 The plaintiffs pointed out that Boehringer also contracted with two Illinois companies to repackage Zantac for nationwide sales. The first company, Mechanical Servants, was based in Melrose Park, Illinois. As part of this agreement, Boehringer would ship Zantac to Mechanical

Servants in Illinois, which would then put the medication into its final packaging with the appropriate labels and package inserts. The agreement specifically noted that Mechanical Servants was to include in its final packages the “FDA Drug Facts Labeling for the Products,” which, according to plaintiffs, was defective and failed to warn consumers that Zantac contained NDMA, a known carcinogen. The agreement also specified that Boehringer was to provide Mechanical Servants samples of this FDA label as well as all “necessary Intellectual Property, Storage Specifications and IP Specifications including all artwork, copy, or other material relating to the Products,” which Mechanical Servants could not alter. Boehringer entered into an identical repackaging agreement with Modern Aids, another Illinois corporation based in Elk Grove.

¶9 Boehringer also entered into an agreement with Rand Diversified Companies, LLC (Rand) to provide quality assurance testing. Although Rand was headquartered in New Jersey, a substantial part of this agreement was to be performed at its facility in Edwardsville, Illinois. Additionally, Boehringer retained a Texas-based broker, Crossmark, Inc., to help it market and sell Zantac, including to Walgreens, for nationwide sales.

¶ 10 According to plaintiffs, Sanofi earned $465,486,873.15 in revenue from the products it sold in Illinois between 2017 and 2023. This figure included $14,652,126.54 worth of Zantac sold to Illinois companies, nearly $5,000,000 of which was sold and shipped to Walgreens in Illinois for national distribution. Like Boehringer, Sanofi also had agreements with Modern Aids and Mechanical Servants to provide repackaging services in Illinois. Additionally, Sanofi contracted with other companies with ties to Illinois to help it sell Zantac. For example, Sanofi contracted with AmerisourceBergen to sell its products. Although AmerisourceBergen is based in Orlando, Florida, its largest shareholder is Walgreens. Through AmerisourceBergen, Sanofi sold millions of dollars of Zantac to retailers and distribution hubs in Illinois for Amazon, Sam’s Club,

Supervalu, McKesson, Costco, and Walgreens. The plaintiffs highlighted the fact that their failure- to-warn claim stemmed from the defective label that did not warn consumers that Zantac contained a known carcinogen and that that label was inserted into Zantac packages in Illinois.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Coudrain v. Walgreen Co., 2026 IL App (1st) 250614-U (Ill. Ct. App. 2026).

2026 IL App (1st) 250614-U (Coudrain v. Walgreen Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Russell v. SNFA
2013 IL 113909 (Illinois Supreme Court, 2013)
Rios v. Bayer Corp.
2020 IL 125020 (Illinois Supreme Court, 2020)
Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial Dist.
592 U.S. 351 (Supreme Court, 2021)
Kothawala v. LG Chem, Ltd.
2023 IL App (1st) 210972 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2023)