Talcum Powder MDL Court Backs Decision Severing Claims, Says Personal Jurisdiction Must be Evaluated on Plaintiff-by-Plaintiff Basis

TRENTON, N.J. –– The federal court overseeing the national talcum powder personal injury multidistrict litigation docket has backed its decision severing claims, noting that other judges in MDL proceedings have observed that non-diverse plaintiffs are “often joined for the sole purpose of defeating diversity jurisdiction and avoiding the MDL proceeding.”

In the Jan. 19 decision, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey also opined that “the joinder of large numbers of unrelated plaintiffs who are citizens of different states creates a snarl of personal jurisdictional issues, as the Supreme Court has stressed that personal jurisdiction must be …