Westlaw Publishes Akin Gump Article on Developments Regarding Supreme Court’s Bristol-Myers Squibb Class Action Decision

Westlaw Journal Class Action has published the article “Bristol-Myers and class actions: Emerging trends,” written by Akin Gump litigation partner Neal Marder, counsel Andrew Jick and associate Ursula Rothrock. The article reviews recent federal district court decisions pertaining to last year’s Supreme Court ruling in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, with regard to personal jurisdiction challenges in nationwide class actions.

The authors begin with some background on the Bristol-Myers case, which involved “product liability claims filed by hundreds of plaintiffs – only some of them California residents – seeking to hold Bristol-Myers liable in California state court for injuries allegedly caused by Plavix, the company’s blood-thinning drug.” The Supreme Court ultimately held that California courts “lacked specific jurisdiction over claims by nonresidents that were unrelated to the company’s activities in the state.”

Because this particular case was a mass tort lawsuit rather than a class action – each with its own important distinctions, the article notes – a split on the issue has emerged. Marder, Jick and Rothrock discuss separate rulings by different courts before concluding that any further development of the issue “is likely to have a significant impact on forum-shopping efforts by plaintiffs and on the ability of companies to obtain early resolution of nationwide class claims.”

To read the full article, please click here.