On January 11, 2021, the Supreme Court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari for the Seventh Circuit case Mussat v. IQVIA, Inc. In deciding to not to hear Mussat, the Court leaves in place a decision that the petitioners say plainly conflicts with the precedent established by the Court’s 2017 decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California.
In Bristol-Myers Squibb, more than 600 plaintiffs, 86 California residents and 575 non-California residents, had filed eight mass tort actions against Bristol-Myers Squibb for injuries related to the pharmaceutical company’s “Plavix” drug. There, the Court was faced with the question of whether a plaintiff’s claims “sufficiently [arise] out of or [relate] to a defendant’s forum activities to create specific jurisdiction when the plaintiff’s claims would be exactly the same even if the defendant had no forum contacts.” The Court determined that under such circumstances, there is no basis for specific jurisdiction because the case does not sufficiently arise out of or relate to the defendant’s forum activities. In so holding, the Court concluded that “settled principles” of personal jurisdiction require that there be a discernable connection between the proposed forum and the parties’ underlying controversy. Ultimately, because the out-of-state plaintiffs’ claims had no connection with California, the majority held that the California court did not have specific jurisdiction to hear those individuals’ claims.
The Court’s ruling in Bristol-Myers however created a new question: whether the decision also applied to claims for unnamed, out-of-state putative class members in class action lawsuits. Many Northern District of Illinois courts determined that it did, including district judge Virginia M. Kendall in the matter of Mussat v. IQVIA, Inc. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit came to the opposite conclusion, holding that the limitations on specific jurisdiction articulated in Bristol-Myers apply only to the named class representatives’ claims, not those of the unnamed, absent class members. In its decision, the Seventh Circuit noted that “[t]he Supreme Court has regularly entertained cases involving nationwide classes where the plaintiff relied on specific, rather than general, personal jurisdiction in the trial court.” The holding characterized IQVIA’s claim that “class actions have always required minimum contacts between all class members and the forum” as “nothing more than ipse dixit” – an assertion devoid of proof or a dogmatic expression of opinion.
Further, the Seventh Circuit court differentiated between mass tort actions, such as those that were the subject of Bristol-Myers, and class action lawsuits predicated on an alleged violation of a federal statute. The opinion explained that if the principles regarding consolidated individual suits espoused in Bristol-Myers also applied to class actions, “nationwide class actions will, as a practical matter, be impossible any time the defendant is not subject to general jurisdiction.” In arriving at its conclusion, the Seventh Circuit court noted that absent class members are not considered “parties” to the litigation for purposes of either assessing whether diverse citizenship under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 has been met, or determining whether the case is properly venued. In view of these facts, the court concluded that “we see no reason why personal jurisdiction should be treated any differently from subject-matter jurisdiction and venue.” Finally, the opinion highlighted the fact that the High Court’s opinion in Bristol-Myers “expressly reserved the question [of] whether its holding extended to the federal courts at all,” and that the Court did not “reach the question [of] whether its holding would apply to a class action.”
IQVIA, Inc. contends that the Seventh Circuit’s decision conflicts with the growing consensus on this issue among the district courts, and that the Supreme Court is in the best position to alleviate the controversy. Petitioners further suggest that Mussat is “clean vehicle” to address such a question “whose answer is vitally important now to class-action plaintiffs and defendants alike.” However, as the Court has declined to take-up the case, the controversy will persist. As the Seventh Circuit in Mussat was among the first courts of appeals to address this question of great practical significance, it will be important to see how other appellate courts ultimately weigh-in.
If you have questions concerning the scope of personal jurisdiction in state and federal courts, or whether the holding in Mussat v. IQVIA, Inc. could help or hurt your legal position, please feel free to contact Joe Messer at jmesser@messerstrickler.com (312-334-3440), or Luke Chamberlain at lchamberlain@messerstrickler.com (312-334-3469).