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Nature of Suit Code: 365
Nature of Suit: Personal Injury - Product Liability
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted May 3, 2016*

Decided August 22, 2016

Before

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 16-1171

RUFUS ONYEBUENYI NWATULEGWU,

and SARAH N. NWATULEGWU

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM

PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

No. 3:15-px-1055

David R. Herndon,

Judge.

O R D E R

This personal-injury suit under the diversity jurisdiction is one of thousands 

consolidated for pretrial proceedings as part of multidistrict litigation in the Southern 

District of Illinois. The plaintiffs, Rufus Nwatulegwu and his wife, Sarah, claim that 

Mr. Nwatulegwu suffered a stroke because he was using the drug Pradaxa, a 

prescription blood-thinner marketed by the defendant, Boehringer Ingelheim 

 

* This appeal is successive to case no. 13-3898 and is being decided under 

Operating Procedure 6(b) by the same panel. After examining the briefs and the record, 

we have concluded that oral argument is unnecessary. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 16-1171 Page 2

Pharmaceuticals. The Nwatulegwus moved for leave to voluntarily dismiss the action

without prejudice after failing to meet discovery deadlines, but the district court instead 

dismissed the action with prejudice, prompting this appeal. 

A case-management order in this MDL obligates every plaintiff alleging injury 

from Pradaxa to provide Boehringer with a Plaintiff Fact Sheet, five years of medical 

and pharmacy records, an affidavit attesting to the completeness of those records, and 

expert opinions addressing whether Pradaxa caused the plaintiff’s injury. A plaintiff 

who fails to comply with the prescribed deadlines (15 days for injury-related records 

and 30 for expert reports) will have 20 days to cure before the district court, on 

Boehringer’s motion, will order the plaintiff to show cause why the suit should not be 

dismissed with prejudice. The case-management order also specifies that disregarding 

an order to show cause may result in dismissal. 

The Nwatulegwus’ initial production was both incomplete and misleading. Their

complaint and Plaintiff Fact Sheet recount that Mr. Nwatulegwu suffered a stroke in 

Washington, D.C., and was hospitalized for a month. But records from that hospital link

Mr. Nwatulegwu’s problems to severe headaches and several falls a few weeks earlier 

while the couple was on an extended trip to Nigeria. Physicians there had concluded 

from an MRI that Mr. Nwatulegwu was suffering from a “large bleed in the head that 

required surgical intervention by Nigerian neurosurgeon.” But instead of having 

surgery in Nigeria, Mr. Nwatulegwu returned to the United States and sought 

treatment at the D.C. hospital. The Nwatulegwus did not turn over medical records 

from any Nigerian treatment provider (despite their affidavit attesting that all records 

had been disclosed), and neither did their lawyer even tell Boehringer that Mr. 

Nwatulegwu’s illness in Nigeria had precipitated his further treatment in Washington. 

Counsel for Boehringer notified plaintiffs’ counsel about this failure (along with several 

other, less egregious deficiencies) and warned that, if the omission was not cured in the 

20 days allotted by the case-management order, Boehringer would seek dismissal.

Afterward Boehringer notified plaintiffs’ counsel that the deadline for producing expert 

reports also had passed, and again the company warned that it would seek dismissal if 

those reports were not provided within the time for cure.

The Nwatulegwus did not produce any medical records from Nigeria, nor did 

they tender expert reports. In a motion asking the district court for “an open extension 

of time,” the plaintiffs asserted that they had mailed a request for medical records to the 

“best address” available (online) for the hospital where they “believe” Mr. Nwatulegwu 

was treated but were uncertain whether the hospital would comply. And while 

professing doubt that the “records from Nigeria will meaningfully contribute to 

understanding the causation of the plaintiff’s injuries,” they argued that the court 

should excuse their noncompliance with its deadline for expert disclosures because, 

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they explained, an opinion given without seeing those records would be vulnerable to 

exclusion for lack of foundation. Boehringer objected, but before the judge could rule, 

the Nwatulegwus filed another motion, this time asking that they be permitted to 

dismiss their lawsuit without prejudice. Boehringer again objected and, as the district 

court had invited in its case-management order, requested that the Nwatulegwus be 

ordered to show cause why the case should not be dismissed with prejudice. The 

Nwatulegwus failed to respond, and six weeks later the district court entered an order 

refusing to permit a voluntary dismissal without prejudice and instead concluding that 

the plaintiffs had not shown good cause for their noncompliance with the 

case-management order. For that reason the court dismissed the action with prejudice.

On appeal the Nwatulegwus argue that the district court abused its discretion by 

“jumping straight to the harshest sanction available” for “a missed deadline” after they 

had moved for an extension of time within the period for cure. At the same time, 

however, the Nwatulegwus ignore the court’s conclusion that dismissal with prejudice 

was justified based solely on their failure to establish good cause for disregarding the 

deadlines set out in the case-management order. 

A request for voluntary dismissal without prejudice is committed to the broad 

discretion of the district court, see FED. R. CIV. P. 41(a)(2), and we review the denial of 

such a request for an abuse of discretion. Tolle v. Carroll Touch, Inc., 23 F.3d 174, 177 (7th 

Cir. 1994); FDIC v. Knostman, 966 F.2d 1133, 1142 (7th Cir. 1992). Rule 41(a)(2) requires 

that the plaintiff persuade the district court that a voluntary dismissal should be 

without prejudice, and, absent such a showing, voluntary dismissal is inappropriate. 

Tolle, 23 F.3d at 177. Moreover, a district court may, in appropriate circumstances, grant 

a motion for voluntary dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1) but make that dismissal with

prejudice. Ratkovich v. Smith Kline, 951 F.2d 155, 157–58 (7th Cir. 1991). The 

Nwatulegwus’ argument—essentially that they were entitled to a dismissal without 

prejudice—lacks merit.

Strict adherence to case management orders is necessary to manage multidistrict 

litigation, In re Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) Prods. Liab. Litig., 460 F.3d 1217, 1252–53 

(9th Cir. 2006), and our sister circuits have affirmed dismissals with prejudice based on 

noncompliance with discovery deadlines. See In re Asbestos Prods. Liab. Litig. (No. VI), 

718 F.3d 236, 243, 246–48 (3rd Cir. 2013) (noting that, in “sprawling multidistrict” 

litigation, “district judge must be given wide latitude with regard to case management” 

to achieve efficiency); In re Guidant Corp. Implantable Defibrillators Prods. Liab. Litig., 

496 F.3d 863, 867 (8th Cir. 2007). The Nwatulegwus were warned that noncompliance

would doom their lawsuit, yet they not only missed deadlines repeatedly but didn’t 

even bother to respond when Boehringer asked the district court to sanction their 

disregard for the court’s case-management order. And while it may be more difficult to 

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obtain medical records from a hospital in Nigeria than one in Washington, D.C., the 

plaintiffs have never said that they asked the Nigerian hospital for records before 

Boehringer realized that Mr. Nwatulegwu had received medical care in that country. 

What seems clear is that the plaintiffs concealed the existence of records covered by the 

case-management order and, after being caught, have sought to blame Boehringer and 

belittled the missing records as lacking relevance. We cannot understand why, in the 

face of dismissal, counsel for the plaintiffs did not simply call the Nigerian hospital, or 

attempt to contact the treating physicians directly, or, indeed, undertake any step to 

secure the records aside from mailing a record-retention request halfway around the

world and hoping for the best. Faced with this lack of diligent prosecution, the district 

court was within its discretion to dismiss the claim with prejudice.

AFFIRMED.

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