Quoted from http://www.law.com/jsp/tal/digestTAL.jsp?id=1202437215921&New_York_State_Appeals_Court_Knocks_Out_Lipitor_Suits
New York State Appeals Court Knocks Out Lipitor Suits
By David Bario
December 22, 2009
Back in November 2008, we wrote that a New York State appeals court had affirmed lower court dismissals of three product liability actions (fourth item) against Pfizer by Michigan residents over injuries they allegedly suffered from taking the anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor. We noted then that the Michigan plaintiffs had hoped to sidestep their home state's defense-friendly tort laws in drug cases by bringing the cases in New York, where Pfizer is headquartered. Neither the trial judge nor the appellate court bought the plaintiffs' jurisdiction arguments in those cases, and now the pattern has repeated itself in a consolidated Lipitor product liability case brought by a Georgia man and 16 other out-of-state plaintiffs before the same New York courts.
On Tuesday, New York State's first appellate department affirmed a June 2008 ruling by trial judge Martin Shulman dismissing a case against Pfizer brought by Georgia resident Charles Wilson, who claimed to have suffered peripheral neuropathy, memory loss, disorientation, and depression from taking Lipitor in 2002 and 2003. The appellate court, considering an appeal of Wilson's case consolidated with 16 others, agreed with Judge Shulman's ruling on grounds of forum non conveniens.
The order, available here, addresses the plaintiffs' jurisdiction arguments pretty succinctly: "Wilson ... is a resident of Georgia; his physician who recommended and prescribed the drug, and on whose recommendation Wilson solely relied, lives in Georgia; Wilson ingested the drug in Georgia and suffered his injuries in Georgia; all of Wilson's treating physicians are in Georgia; and all of Wilson's witness are in Georgia."