Quoted from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/01/06/financial/f172709S29.DTL
Appeals court sends Ark Prempro cases back to Minn
By CHUCK BARTELS, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Little Rock, Ark. (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated more than 100 lawsuits against drug companies filed by women or their surviving relatives who claimed that hormone replacement therapy caused breast cancer.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis overturned a 2008 district court ruling that had blocked almost all of the suits from being sent back to state court in Minnesota and dismissed most of the lawsuits that were being heard in Little Rock.
The appeals court ruled that since the cases belonged in a state court, the district court judge did not have jurisdiction to dismiss them. It also reversed the dismissal of dozens of cases that the lower court ruled should not have been part of the litigation because they duplicated claims pending in California.
The plaintiffs argued that the judge didn't give them a "reasonable opportunity" to be heard and abused his authority by not merely staying the cases pending the outcome in California.