Richard Samp of the Washington Legal Foundation. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

In a move that comes amid a vicious split among federal trial courts, an Illinois plaintiff is asking a U.S. appeals court to decide whether a ruling that limits personal jurisdiction in mass torts should also apply to class actions.

The Washington Legal Foundation and the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center have filed amicus briefs in the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, supporting IQVIA Holdings Inc., a health care information company. IQVIA, a Pennsylvania-based company, argued successfully in the trial court that it should not be forced to defend itself in an Illinois court against nationwide class plaintiffs who also have no relationship to Illinois. The case's outcome will be significant for general counsel and their companies.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall, in the Northern District of Illinois, agreed last October. Kendall based her ruling on the U.S. Supreme Court's 2017 decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California, which was a mass tort action. She said that due process ruling also applies to class actions.

Richard Samp, chief litigation counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation, said the IQVIA case “is an important follow-up” to the Bristol Myers case, which basically held that an out-of-state plaintiff may not sue an out-of-state corporation in, for example, Illinois, unless the cause of action arose in Illinois.

“That was a major victory for the corporate community because it means that corporations don't have to defend all their cases in judicial hellholes,” Samp told Corporate Counsel on Wednesday. “But the IQVIA case, and another one in D.C. Circuit, is an effort by the plaintiffs' bar to do an end run around the Bristol Myers decision.”

The other case involves defendant Whole Foods Market, which has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn a lower court ruling that refused to apply Bristol-Myers to its class action case. Several federal courts have ruled on both sides of the issue, as in IQVIA and Whole Foods, as to whether Bristol-Myers should apply to class actions.

Samp said, “These two cases will be the first to decide the issue of class actions.” He added both are important to general counsel, and “have drawn significant amicus interest on both sides.”

Matthew Wessler, of the Washington, D.C., firm Gupta Wessler, agrees on the importance of the case. Wessler, who represents plaintiffs in the Whole Foods case, joined the American Association for Justice in filing an amicus brief asking that Kendall's ruling be overturned.

“Over the last two years, some courts around the country have started reading [Bristol-Myers] to mean that federal class actions are limited by state boundaries—which would be a massive change in the law that has governed for decades,” Wessler told Corporate Counsel.

“Most courts have rejected that reading,” he said, “but no federal appeals court has weighed in yet, which means that what the Seventh Circuit says here could be very meaningful for class actions going forward.”

As expected, the Chamber Litigation Center saw the issue differently. Its brief argued that “permitting a court to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over class members/claims with no connection to the forum would harm businesses and the judicial system.”

Chamber chief legal officer John Wood said, “As Chamber explained in its amicus brief, requiring only the named plaintiffs to establish specific personal jurisdiction would encourage untrammeled forum shopping and impose substantial harm on businesses and on the judicial system.” The brief was presented by the Chamber's Steven Lehotsky and Jonathan Urick, along with attorneys from Mayer Brown.

The IQVIA case arose after the company allegedly sent two unsolicited faxes to a doctor's office. The doctor sued IQVIA, citing violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.