BENTON – A district court in Illinois has granted a plaintiff’s request that a lawsuit against drug giant Bayer be remanded back to Madison County Circuit Court.
The plaintiffs had requested the case be remanded from federal court in East St. Louis as they claim the district court lacks jurisdiction for the case.
Despite Bayer’s opposition to the motion, U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle granted the request.
The case involves 86 individual plaintiffs from 22 states. The court order notes that Bayer Corp. is based in Indiana and Pennsylvania while Bayer Essure Inc. and Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals were both based in Delaware and New Jersey.
The plaintiffs allege injuries resulting from the defendant’s Essure product. The product was developed as a permanent type of birth control for women.
Yandle noted that the court had previously handled a similar case in 2016, Rio v. Bayer Corp.
The defendants had moved to dismiss and to sever non-diverse parties from the case, according to the court order.
“Defendants do not deny that complete diversity is lacking," the order states. "Rather, they argue that this court nonetheless has diversity jurisdiction because the out-of-state plaintiffs’ claims should be dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction or under the doctrine of forum non conveniens.”
The defendants argued that out-of-state plaintiffs were “fraudulently joined or procedurally misjoined” to the case.
To successfully challenge the motion, the defendants needed to prove that a federal statute grants the court jurisdiction or that common law jurisdiction to a "uniquely federal interest" would be hindered by state law application, the order states.
In the end, the court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over the case.
“Because this court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over this matter, it is obligated pursuant to 28 USC § 1447(c), to remand the case back to Circuit Court of the Third Judicial Circuit, Madison County,” the order states.