SAN FRANCISCO — In a rare win for plaintiffs involving the Class Action Fairness Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that a mass pharmaceutical action involving hundreds of individual plaintiffs can stay in a California state court, notwithstanding the objections of defendant Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, amicus U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a dissenting judge.
The court ruled that a coordinated mass action involving 1,500 individual plaintiffs does not belong in federal court because the four plaintiff firms said they were joining the cases together primarily for pretrial purposes. Dissenting Judge Ronald Gould said the case is exactly the type designated for federal court, regardless of how the plaintiffs characterized it.
