Lin v. Solta Medical, Inc.

Background

Hsin Lin filed a products-liability action against Solta Medical, Inc. and Bausch Health Americas, Inc. Lin alleged that she suffered severe second-degree burns after receiving a Thermage CPT skin treatment in Taiwan on January 23, 2019. She alleged that she learned about the procedure through the defendants’ online advertisements and Solta’s website.

Lin’s amended complaint asserted claims for defective design, manufacturing defect, failure to warn, negligence, breach of express warranty, and breach of implied warranty. She alleged that the Thermage CPT device was designed, engineered, and manufactured in California and that its user manual contained defective warnings about the risk of serious burns.

Personal Jurisdiction

The defendants moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Personal jurisdiction is a court’s power to hear a case involving a particular defendant. The court had previously found that it lacked general jurisdiction over the defendants because their contacts with California were insufficient, but it allowed discovery and deferred deciding whether California had specific jurisdiction. Specific jurisdiction concerns claims connected to a defendant’s activities in the forum state.

The court applied the Ninth Circuit’s three-part test for specific jurisdiction: whether the defendant purposefully conducted activities in California, whether the claims arose from or related to those activities, and whether exercising jurisdiction would be reasonable.

As to Solta, the court found that Lin met the first requirement. The parties did not dispute that Solta designed the Thermage CPT in Hayward, California, manufactured it exclusively there from 2009 to 2015, and created the user manual there in 2010. The court concluded that these activities were directly tied to the product involved in the lawsuit and were not merely the placement of a product into the stream of commerce.

The court also found, at that stage of the case, that Lin met the second requirement because her claims concerned a device allegedly designed and developed in California and a user manual allegedly written and published there. The court found the third requirement—reasonableness—satisfied as well. It therefore concluded that Lin had made an initial showing supporting specific jurisdiction over Solta.

The court emphasized that factual issues could change its analysis. For example, if the device used in Lin’s treatment was not designed or manufactured in California, or if the manual used during the treatment was not written and published there, the court would likely reach a different conclusion. The court also said it would give little weight to additional evidence about Solta’s California call center because Lin’s claims and injuries were unrelated to that center.

As to BHA, the court found no personal jurisdiction. Lin argued that Solta acted as BHA’s agent. The court explained that showing an agency or alter-ego relationship required evidence of such unity of interest and ownership that the companies no longer had separate identities, together with a showing that respecting their separate identities would cause fraud or injustice. Lin provided no evidence supporting an agency relationship. The court also rejected Lin’s characterization of a declaration by Scott Hirsch, finding that the declaration stated only that BHA was Solta’s parent company.

Other Requests

The court granted the defendants’ request for judicial notice of two publicly available Food and Drug Administration documents: a Thermage CPT premarket notification and a January 8, 2019 clearance letter. Judicial notice allows a court to accept certain facts or documents without requiring formal proof when their accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned. The court did not state that disputed facts contained in those documents were accepted as true.

The court denied Lin’s motion to seal information concerning Solta’s yearly revenue from Thermage devices in California. The defendants argued that the information was sensitive business information and a trade secret. The court held that the defendants relied only on general, unsupported statements about competitive harm and did not explain what advantage competitors would gain from disclosure.

Disposition

The court denied Solta’s motion to dismiss without prejudice. It granted BHA’s motion to dismiss without leave to amend. It granted the defendants’ request for judicial notice and denied Lin’s motion to seal.