In one of the first rulings to apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s new “nerve center” test for determining corporate citizenship, a federal judge has ruled that since GlaxoSmithKline’s executive headquarters is in Philadelphia, the company cannot remove a products liability lawsuit from a Pennsylvania state court to federal court.
“As a citizen of Pennsylvania, GSK violated 28 U.S.C. Section 1441(b) when it removed this case from the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas,” U.S. District Judge J. Curtis Joyner wrote in his nine-page opinion in Monroe v. SmithKline Beecham and GlaxoSmithKline (pdf).
