Alabama Opioid Dismissal Over Jurisdiction Affects Florida, Other States
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall moved to voluntarily dismiss his opioid lawsuit after a judge questioned whether he had federal jurisdiction over the case.
June 13, 2019 at 06:37 PM
4 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Law.com
Alabama voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against several opioid companies after the federal judge questioned whether he had jurisdiction, an issue disputed by Florida and other states.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed the motion Wednesday, citing a June 6 order from U.S. District Judge Dan Polster of the Northern District of Ohio seeking additional briefing on whether he has jurisdiction to hear the case. It was dropped two days ahead of the filing deadline.
Marshall asked that the judge grant the motion without prejudice.
“Because jurisdictional defects can be raised at any time, at any level of the proceedings, Alabama believes that it is in the courts' and the parties' best interests to dismiss Alabama's original action so that it can be refiled, rather than allow jurisdictional issues to resurface post-trial and/or on appeal, if any,” he wrote.
The decision is significant because Alabama was the only state pursuing its opioid case in the multidistrict litigation before Polster, who granted discovery in the case that attorneys general in other states could potentially use. The vast majority of the more than 1,800 lawsuits in the MDL were filed by cities and counties seeking to recoup the costs of medical treatment and law enforcement. Native American tribes, hospitals and others have brought their own lawsuits.
Marshall's office and its outside counsel, Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles in Montgomery, Alabama, had no comment by deadline. Lead plaintiffs counsel in the MDL wrote in an email, “The defendants challenged the jurisdiction of the federal court to hear the case, so Alabama decided to refile at the state level.”
Marshall sued opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma in 2018. Among other things, the suit, amended to include Endo Health Solutions Inc. and McKesson Corp., sought punitive damages, civil penalties and disgorgement of Purdue's “unjust enrichment and ill-gotten gains.” Thirty-five states filed amicus briefs supporting Alabama's opposition to dismissal, including Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and the District of Columbia.
Other attorneys general filed lawsuits in state courts. Last month, a judge dismissed North Dakota's case against Purdue, and Oklahoma began the first trial in the nation with claims against Johnson & Johnson.
In his order, Polster noted Alabama's complaint, most of which alleged state law claims, tied federal jurisdiction to its unjust enrichment claim. McKesson, in a motion to dismiss the case, raised the defense that “there is no such thing as a federal common law claim for unjust enrichment,” the judge wrote. McKesson attorney Geoffrey Hobart, a Washington partner at Covington & Burling, who filed the motion a year ago, did not respond to a request for comment.
“If it is true, the court does not have jurisdiction over the Alabama case,” Polster wrote when he ordered a new round of supplemental briefs on the issue.
In an unusual move, Polster also ordered supplemental briefs on a separate matter: whether certification is appropriate for class actions brought on behalf of opioid-addicted babies across the nation.
“The court is aware that defendants do not believe class certification is appropriate in any of the NAS cases,” Polster wrote, referring to babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome. “Moreover, the question of NAS class certification may affect ongoing settlement discussions.”
He told defendants to file a single motion to strike the class allegations by July 22, with plaintiffs due to respond by Aug. 19.
Scott Bickford of Martzell, Bickford & Centola in New Orleans, who filed the class actions seeking seek a trust of more than $1 billion to help pay for medical monitoring of the children, called the judge's order an “aberrant procedural method in which to deal with our claims.”
“We didn't get notice of his order from class counsel or were even informed of the hearing by liaison counsel,” he said. As to the order, he said: “We're studying it and trying to determine how we will respond at this time.”
|This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllFlorida Law Firms Brace for Category 5 Hurricane Milton
These Florida Courts Are Closing Amid Category 4 Hurricane Milton
$25M Award: Jury Finds Hospital Negligent After Patient Raped
The 'Biden Effect' on Senior Attorneys: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
9 minute readTrending Stories
- 1The Law Firm Disrupted: Playing the Talent Game to Win
- 2GlaxoSmithKline Settles Most Zantac Lawsuits for $2.2B
- 3BD Settles Thousands of Bard Hernia Mesh Lawsuits
- 4Preparing Your Law Firm for 2025: Smart Ways to Embrace AI & Other Technologies
- 5Inside Track: Late-Career In-House Leaders Offer Words to Live by
Who Got The Work
Caroline Pignatelli of Cooley has entered an appearance for law firm Cooley, partner Matt Hallinan, retired partner Michael Tu and a pair of Cooley associates in a pending fraud lawsuit related to the firm's representation of startup company Carbon IQ and founder Benjamin Cantey. The case, filed Sept. 26 in New Jersey District Court by the DalCortivo Law Offices on behalf of Gould Ventures and member Jason Gould, contends that the defendants deliberately or recklessly concealed critical information from the plaintiffs regarding fraud allegations against Cantey. Gould claims that he would not have accepted a position on Carbon IQ's board of directors or made a 2022 investment in the company if the fraud allegations had been disclosed. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Robert Kirsch, is 3:24-cv-09485, Gould Ventures, LLC et al v. Cooley, LLP et al.
Who Got The Work
Attorneys from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom have stepped in to represent PDD Holdings, the operator of online marketplaces Pinduoduo and Temu, in a pending securities class action. The case, filed Sept. 30 in New York Eastern District Court by Labaton Keller Sucharow and VanOverbeke, Michaud & Timmony, contends that the defendants concealed information that rendered the growth of PDD unsustainable and posed substantial risks to PDD’s business, including merchant policies that made it unprofitable for vendors to do business on PDD platforms; malware issues on PDD applications; and PDD’s failure to implement effective compliance systems. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Pamela K. Chen, is 1:24-cv-06881, Macomb County Retiree Health Care Fund v. Pdd Holdings Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Robert A. Fumerton, Scott D. Musoff, Michael C. Griffin and Judith 'Judy' A. Flumenbaum of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom have entered appearances for PDD Holdings f/k/a Pinduoduo in a pending securities class action. The suit, filed Oct. 1 in New York Eastern District Court by the Rosen Law Firm, contends that the defendants concealed the company's sale of goods likely produced by forced labor and its efforts to install malware on users' phones, exacerbating the risk of regulatory and public scrutiny. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph A. Marutollo, is 1:24-cv-06950, Shaw v. Pdd Holdings Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Nicholas M. DePalma and Christian R. Schreiber of Venable have stepped in to represent CP Management Services, CRS RB4 Holdings and other defendants in a pending breach-of-contract lawsuit. The suit was filed Aug. 30 in Virginia Eastern District Court by Greenberg Traurig on behalf of Daito Kentaku USA. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton, is 1:24-cv-01538, Daito Kentaku USA, LLC v. Comstock Partners, LC.
Who Got The Work
Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs partner Andrew J. Pulliam has entered an appearance for Steve Jensen in a pending breach-of-contract lawsuit. The action, filed Aug. 30 in Tennessee Middle District Court by the Law Office of Perry A. Craft on behalf of Timothy Robins, accuses the defendant of writing a worthless check for over $94,000 for the sale of auctioned goods. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Eli J. Richardson, is 3:24-cv-01064, Robins v. Jensen et al.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250