On July 30, the California Court of Appeals handed down a major ruling on personal jurisdiction in Bristol Myers Squibb v. Superior Court. That cases involves hundreds of personal injury claims brought by both in-state and out-of-state plaintiffs in California state court against BMS and its distributor, McKesson, for injuries caused by BMS’s prescription drug Plavix. BMS moved to quash service of process of the claims brought by the out-of-state plaintiffs, contending that, under the recent Supreme Court general jurisdiction decisions in Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S. A. v. Brown (2011),and DaimlerChrysler AG v. Bauman (2014), it was not subject to personal jurisdiction in California courts for those claims. The California Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of BMS’s motion to quash service. 

The Court of Appeal agreed with BMS that, under the recent Supreme Court authority, it was not subject to general personal jurisdiction in California. It nevertheless found that BMS was subject to specific personal jurisdiction over the claims brought by the non-California plaintiffs because of the substantial connection between those claims and BMS’s activities selling Plavix in California: “The crucial inquiry concerns the character of the defendant’s activity in the forum, whether the cause of action arises out of or has a substantial connection with that activity, and the balancing of the convenience of the parties and the interests of the state in assuming jurisdiction.” The court found that the claims of the non-California plaintiffs were substantially connected to the identical claims brought by California plaintiffs injured by Plavix, that BMS had not shown undue burden or unfairness in having to litigate the claims in California (indeed, it was likely to benefit from judicial economies in litigating the cases together), and California had an interest in providing a forum in which the claims of both California and non-California plaintiffs could be litigated together. 

The out-of-state plaintiffs were represented by CCL attorneys Louis Bograd and Robert Peck, and by Hunter Shkolnik and Shayna Sacks of Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik LLP in New York. A copy of the opinion can be found here: http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A140035.PDF.