The California Supreme Court’s recent decision to relax restrictions on who may bring mass tort claims in the Golden State may have sent shockwaves throughout the products liability bar as the latest pronouncement in the ongoing battle over jurisdiction, but according to attorneys, Pennsylvania will see little immediate impact.
“Philadelphia will always be the home of mass tort cases the way it is today,” said Hunter Shkolnik of Napoli Law, who helped secure the win in California for his clients in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Anderson. “It’s the same reason why California is appropriate: you have a very well-developed judiciary and mass tort program, highly skilled judges, and obviously many defendants are based in the Philadelphia area.”
