April 26, 2011
Jeremy Taylor, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group
A recent decision by a U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania combined, in an interesting way, the issues of removal of a case to federal court and of the potential responsibility under a products liability theory of the publisher of an "education monograph" containing warnings about a prescription drug. See Slater v. Hoffman-La Roche, Inc., Civ. Action No. 10-6956, 2011 WL 1087240, at *1 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 24, 2011). The plaintiff sued the manufacturer of the acne drug Accutane, alleging that the drug had caused him to develop colitis and ulcerative colitis. The plaintiff also sued the publisher of a monograph explaining the dangers of Accutane. The plaintiff was a resident of Wisconsin, the drug manufacturer was a resident of New Jersey, and the publisher of the educational monograph was a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Pennsylvania. Following the plaintiff's filing in Pennsylvania state court, the defendants removed the action to the federal district court. The plaintiff moved to remand the case to the state court. The court noted that unless the publisher had been fraudulently joined, the claims against it had to be remanded, in light of the rule that removal to federal court is permissible only if none of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the state in which the action has been brought. See 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b).
