Liggins v. Abbvie Inc.

164 F. Supp. 3d 1040
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedFebruary 18, 2016
DocketNo. 14 C 1748; No. 15 C 11058; MDL No. 2545
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 164 F. Supp. 3d 1040 (Liggins v. Abbvie Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Liggins v. Abbvie Inc., 164 F. Supp. 3d 1040 (N.D. Ill. 2016).

Opinion

[1042]*1042MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

MATTHEW F. KENNELLY, District Judge:

Defendants AbbVie Inc. and Abbott Laboratories are pharmaceutical companies incorporated in Delaware, with their principal places of business in Illinois.1 Plaintiffs are ten unrelated individuals from nine different states (Missouri, Illi[1043]*1043nois, New Jersey, Connecticut, Mississippi, Florida, West Virginia, Indiana, and New York) who jointly sued defendants in state court in Missouri, alleging that they suffered personal injuries caused by defendants’ testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) drug AndroGel. Defendants removed the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri based on diversity of citizenship. Once in federal court, defendants filed a motion to stay proceedings pending the likely transfer of the case to this multidis-trict litigation (MDL) proceeding, as well as a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. Plaintiffs filed a motion to remand the case to state court, contending that the federal court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because of a lack of complete diversity of citizenship. After the parties’ motions were fully briefed but prior to any rulings, the Judicial Panel for Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) transferred the case to this Court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407, for inclusion in the MDL proceeding.

For the reasons discussed below, the Court grants defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction with respect to the claims asserted by Illinois plaintiff Charlie Bernaix. Having thereby preserved diversity of citizenship, the Court denies plaintiffs’ motion to remand. In addition, the Court declines to rule at this time on defendants’ motion to dismiss the remaining plaintiffs’ claims, and because the case has already been transferred, defendants’ motion to stay pending transfer is moot.

Background

Like others whose cases have been consolidated in this MDL proceeding, plaintiffs allege that they have suffered cardiovascular, thromboembolic (blood clotting), or cerebrovascular injuries caused by their use of defendants’ TRT drug AndroGel. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved AndroGel for the treatment of hypogonadism, a condition in which a male produces no or very low testosterone in conjunction with an associated medical condition. Plaintiffs allege, however, that AndroGel is unreasonably dangerous and defectively designed, and that defendants falsely marketed An-droGel to physicians and consumers as a safe and effective treatment for conditions other than hypogonadism. According to plaintiffs, defendants marketed and sold AndroGel .throughout the United States, including in the state of Missouri, where they maintain a registered agent and are licensed to do business.

According to the allegations in the complaint, only one plaintiff suffered injury in connection with defendants’ activities in Missouri. Plaintiffs allege that plaintiff Alvin Liggins, a Missouri citizen, used An-droGel in St. Louis and suffered a deep vein thrombosis there as a result. The nine other plaintiffs are citizens of other states who suffered injuries in other states, and the locations where they used AndroGel were either in other states or are unspecified in the complaint. Plaintiffs do not identify the locations where they or their doctors viewed any advertisements or marketing material for AndroGel. Charlie Ber-naix, the sole Illinois plaintiff, applied An-droGel while in Illinois and suffered a deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism while in Illinois.

As indicated earlier, after plaintiffs filed their case in Missouri state court, defendants removed the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. It was then transferred to this Court and consolidated with the MDL proceeding. Though defendants removed the case to federal court on the basis of diversity of citizenship, plaintiffs deny that diversity exists and have moved [1044]*1044to remand the case to state court on the ground that a federal court lacks subject matter jurisdiction.

Discussion

For a federal court to have subject matter jurisdiction in a case premised on diversity of citizenship, there generally must be complete diversity between the parties; that is, no plaintiff may be a citizen of the same state as any defendant. See Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 7 U.S. 3 Cranch 267, 267, 2 L.Ed. 485 (1806). Because both defendants and one of the plaintiffs are citizens of Illinois, plaintiffs argue that complete diversity is lacking. Thus, according to plaintiffs, defendants’ removal to federal court was improper, and the Court should remand the case. Defendants, on the other hand, maintain that the case falls under an exception to the complete diversity requirement. They argue that a Missouri court cannot exercise personal jurisdiction over defendants with respect to the claims brought by the non-diverse Illinois plaintiff, Bernaix. Thus, they contend, because “there is no reasonable basis for the imposition of liability under [Missouri] law,” the doctrine of “fraudulent joinder” allows the court to assume jurisdiction temporarily and “dismiss the nondiverse party from the case and retain subject matter jurisdiction over the remaining claims.” Murphy v. Aurora Loan Servs., LLC, 699 F.3d 1027, 1031 (8th Cir.2012). In the alternative, defendants argue that the Court may exercise its discretion to address the personal jurisdiction question first before reaching the question of subject matter jurisdiction.

Plaintiffs make three arguments in response. First, they argue that the lack of complete diversity makes the subject matter jurisdiction issue simple and that the Court should address that issue first and remand the case prior to deciding the issue of personal jurisdiction. Second, they argue that the fraudulent joinder doctrine, which involves an assessment of the substantive merits of the claims involving the non-diverse parties, is not applicable because personal jurisdiction is a non-merits issue. Third, they argue that defendants’ contacts with the state of Missouri provide a reasonable basis for a Missouri court to exercise personal jurisdiction over them for the entire case. After discussing the appropriate source of federal law to apply in this case, the Court turns to the parties’ jurisdictional arguments.

A. Applicable law

For cases transferred by the JPML to an MDL proceeding, the transferee court applies the law of the circuit in which it sits to decide issues of federal procedure like those presently before the Court. See In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., Tires Prods. Liab. Litig., 256 F.Supp.2d 884, 888 (S.D.Ind.2003); cf. McMasters v. United States, 260 F.3d 814, 819 (7th Cir.2001) (“Only where the law of the United States is specifically intended to be geographically non-uniform should the transferee court apply the circuit precedent of the transferor court.”). The parties submitted their briefs on these motions while the case was still pending in the Eastern District of Missouri, and thus the parties’ arguments assume that the Eighth Circuit supplies the governing federal law.

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Bluebook (online)
164 F. Supp. 3d 1040, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/liggins-v-abbvie-inc-ilnd-2016.