Whole Foods Asks DC Circuit to Limit Class Action Jurisdiction Via 'Bristol-Myers'
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit could be the first appeals court to rule on whether Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California applied to class actions.
February 15, 2019 at 07:02 PM
6 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Law.com
Whole Foods Market has asked a federal appeals court to rule on a simmering debate: Whether a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting personal jurisdiction in mass torts should also apply to class actions.
In a Jan. 28 opening brief, Whole Foods attorney Gregory Casas called on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to address a “novel issue of constitutional due process” on which district courts have failed to agree. The question is whether the Supreme Court's 2017 ruling in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California, which was in a mass-tort action, also applies to class actions. So far, more than a dozen court decisions, most ruling on motions to dismiss based on lack of personal jurisdiction, have weighed in on the matter. Judges are split, and no federal appeals court has ruled on the issue.
“At bottom, Bristol-Myers established that a defendant who is not at home in a given state should not be subjected to suit in that state by individuals from other states,” wrote Casas, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig in Austin. “This is true regardless of whether the nationwide suit takes the form of a mass tort or class action.”
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