DISCLAIMER: The following unofficial case summaries are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
091205P.pdf 01/06/2010 Sandra Kirkland v. Wyeth
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 09-1205
and No: 09-1250
and No: 09-1373
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Little Rock
[PUBLISHED] [Bright, Author, with Murphy and Riley, Circuit Judge]
Civil case - Products liability. After considering Fed. R. Civ. P. 20
joinder standards, the court concludes that the manufacturer defendants
have not met their burden of establishing that plaintiffs' claims are
egregiously misjoined, as there are common questions of law and fact and
the claims have real connections in that they relate to similar drugs and
injuries and the manufacturers' knowledge of the risks of the drugs;
further there is no evidence that plaintiffs joined their claims to avoid
diversity jurisdiction; as a result, the district court erred in denying
plaintiffs' motions to remand to state court, and the matter is remanded to
the district court with instructions to remand all of the cases to the
Minnesota state court for lack of jurisdiction; because the district court
lacked jurisdiction to act, its orders granting the manufacturers' motions
to dismiss the duplicative orders is also vacated.