California Federal Court Dismisses Inferior Complaint
Inferior vena cava filters resemble what we used to call "daddy long legs." You know what we mean: the spider-like creatures with small centers, from which long, bent legs emanate in all directions. That is sort of what IVC filters look like, although any resemblance ends there. Manufactured from thin flexible metal, IVC filters can be implanted in the big vein that returns deoxygenated blood to your heartthe vena cavato trap clots (or anything else) and prevent them from traveling to your heart and lungs, where they can cause serious mischief. They are potentially life-saving devices. They last came to our attention the other day when we received a robotic phone call asking us if we knew anyone with an IVC filter who might want to sue. Ye gods.
An order granting a motion to dismiss in an IVC filter case crossed our desks this week, and its discipline and thoroughness caught our eye. The case is Dunson v. Cordis Corp., No. 16-06-03076, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94873 (N.D. Cal. July 20, 2016). The complaint in Dunson included the claims of six different plaintiffs whose claims appear to be unrelated, except that they have the same lawyers and were treated with similar filters made by the same manufacturer. Id. at **3-4. They all alleged complications from filter implantation, and they alleged the full range of product liability claims. Only the express warranty claim survived, and here is why:
Strict liability for design defect: Guess what. The plaintiffs sued in California, and California does not permit strict liability design defect claims in prescription medical device cases. Plaintiffs tried to get around this by asserting in their opposition, for the first time, that some of them had their filters implanted in Arizona and Pennsylvania and that those states' laws therefore should apply. Id. at **9-12. This position raises so many questions: If they were treated outside California, do they also reside outside California? If so, why are Pennsylvania and Arizona residents suing a Florida corporation with an Ohio headquarters in California's courts? If they are from out of state, why did they conceal those facts and wait until opposing a motion to dismiss to admit them? The answers are that these are forum-shopping plaintiffs who are importing their claims along with hundreds of others into California for no legitimate purpose. Their choice-of-law argument did not work this time around. The district court still dismissed their design defect...
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