Thomas v. Mead Johnson & Company, LLC
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:22-cv-02460
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Thomas v. Mead Johnson, Judge Gilliam granted a temporary stay while the multidistrict-litigation panel considered transferring the case.
The plaintiffs and defendants in the three related cases. The order paused all proceedings and deadlines, postponed decisions on the pending motions, canceled upcoming hearings, and terminated motions seeking faster briefing and hearings.
What happened
Thomas v. Mead Johnson & Company, LLC was one of three related cases involving preterm nutrition products. The defendant asked the court to pause the cases while a federal panel considered whether to transfer them to a coordinated proceeding in Illinois. The plaintiffs opposed the stay and argued that their requests to return the cases to state court should be decided first.
The court granted the motions to stay and paused all proceedings and deadlines for 60 days, or until the panel issued its final transfer order, whichever came first. The court held the plaintiffs’ requests to return the cases to state court and the defendants’ other pending motions in abeyance, meaning it postponed deciding them. Any upcoming hearings on those motions were canceled, and motions seeking faster briefing and hearings were terminated as moot.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. said the temporary stay would conserve judicial resources and allow jurisdiction questions to be addressed consistently. The court said the plaintiffs could renew their requests if the cases were not transferred, or raise them before the Illinois court if they were transferred.
The detailed version
- Thomas v. Mead Johnson & Company, LLC · No. 4:22-cv-02460
- Haywood Gilliam
- June 27, 2022
Background
The opinion addresses motions to stay in three related cases involving preterm nutrition products. Abbott Laboratories asked the court to pause the cases while the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation considered whether to centralize them in a multidistrict proceeding in the Northern District of Illinois. A conditional transfer order had been filed for all three cases.
The defendant argued that a stay would conserve judicial resources, reduce the risk of inconsistent rulings on pretrial issues, and avoid duplicative proceedings. The plaintiffs opposed the stays and argued that the cases had been improperly removed from state court. They asked the court to decide their motions to remand—requests to return the cases to state court—before deciding whether to stay the proceedings.
Court’s analysis
The court held that it had authority to stay proceedings while another judicial process that could affect the cases was pending. It found that a temporary stay would conserve resources and allow the court handling the multidistrict proceeding to resolve jurisdiction questions uniformly.
The court also found no apparent risk of harm or prejudice. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation was scheduled to consider the transfer on July 28, 2022, so the stay would be temporary. If the cases were not transferred, the plaintiffs could promptly renew their motions to remand before this court. If the cases were transferred, they could raise those motions before the multidistrict court.
Order
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. GRANTED the motions to stay. The court STAYED all proceedings and deadlines in the three related cases for 60 days, or until the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued a final order regarding transfer to the Northern District of Illinois, whichever was earlier.
The court HELD IN ABEYANCE the plaintiffs’ motions to remand and the defendants’ motions to dismiss, motions to strike, and motions to compel arbitration. Any upcoming hearing dates on those motions were VACATED. The parties’ motions to advance the briefing schedule and hearings were TERMINATED AS MOOT. The order did not decide the merits of the remand, dismissal, striking, or arbitration motions.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.