Pfizer Inc., et al. v. Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, et al.

This Petition concerns the California state courts’ undisputed lack of personal jurisdiction over products liability claims filed against Petitioners by more than 3,600 non-resident Plaintiffs. This Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017), held that due process forbids the California courts from exercising personal jurisdiction over such claims. Yet, rather than applying Bristol-Myers, the California courts forged a path around it, ruling that Petitioners had forfeited their admittedly meritorious defense. Purporting to apply federal law, the California courts crafted a forfeiture rule contrary to this Court’s precedents and all controlling law in the Courts of Appeals: that Petitioners forfeited their right to contest personal jurisdiction, despite having timely raised the challenge, because they did not file a personal jurisdiction motion simultaneous with their attempts to establish subject matter jurisdiction in federal court. The question presented is whether, under federal law, a defendant’s efforts to establish federal subject matter jurisdiction can result in forfeiture of an otherwise fully preserved challenge to personal jurisdiction.