You cannot get too much of a good thing, so let's celebrate another good jurisdiction case out of Missouri. (Prior examples can be found here and here, among others.) In Timpone v. Ethicon, 2019 WL 2525780 (E.D. Mo. June 19, 2019), the plaintiff lawyers cobbled together 99 plaintiffs (a pure CAFA evasion) to file a complaint in Missouri state court alleging injuries from vaginal mesh. To be more specific, the complaint was filed in City of St. Louis Circuit Court, which can legitimately claim bragging rights for being the most pro-plaintiff court in our litigious land. The defendants were not citizens of Missouri. They were not "at home" in Missouri, under the Bauman SCOTUS case. Nor were 96 of the 99 plaintiffs at home in Missouri. Those 96 were citizens of other states. They were mere litigation tourists in Missouri. Perhaps they wanted a summer vacation in Branson. Perhaps their lawyers were opportunists who read more St. Louis verdict sheets than SCOTUS opinions – or at least read them more carefully.
The defendants removed the case to Missouri federal court. Then we are off to the races with competing jurisdictional motions. The plaintiffs moved to remand on the theory that some of those non-Missouri plaintiffs shared citizenship with the defendants, thereby depriving the federal court of diversity jurisdiction. The defendants moved to dump the non-Missouri plaintiffs for lack of personal jurisdiction over the defendants with respect to the non-Missourian claims.
It could matter a great deal which motion gets decided first. The plaintiffs were certainly hoping that the federal court would first decide lack of diversity jurisdiction, then remand the case to a state court that might not be so punctilious when it comes to the recent tightening of personal jurisdiction. By contrast, the defendants wanted the federal court to take a look at personal jurisdiction first, send the non-Missourians packing, then keep the case between the Missouri plaintiffs and the non-Missouri defendants.
Luckily for the defendants, after the Bristol-Myers Squibb SCOTUS case, judges in the Eastern District of Missouri have consistently held that the issue of personal jurisdiction is more straightforward than subject matter jurisdiction, so it goes first. And it really is straightforward in the Timpone case. The complaint contained no allegations that any of the non-Missourians' injuries arose out of the defendants' actions in Missouri. Sure, the defendants sold product in Missouri, but even such "regular and sustained" business does not create general personal jurisdiction over a defendant. Thus, the personal jurisdiction issue comes down to specific jurisdiction and, in the wake of Bristol-Myers Squibb, that is an obvious loser for the non-Missourians. It was certainly obvious to the Missouri federal judge. If the non-Missourians really were injured by the defendants, they weren't injured by anything the defendants did in Missouri. The judge held that he lacked personal jurisdiction with respect to the claims by the 96 non-Missourians, and was required to dismiss the claims by those plaintiffs. The remaining three Missouri plaintiffs were diverse to the defendants, so the Timpone court had jurisdiction over those claims. That is a good result for the defendant and, as we said, it was perfectly obvious.
Why wasn't this result obvious to the plaintiff lawyers? Do they not read? Or not care? Is it ignorance or defiance?
This article is presented for informational purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal advice.
