Title: Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of San Francisco County
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S221038
State: California
Issuer: California Supreme Court
Date: August 29, 2016

SEE DISSENTING OPINION 
Filed 8/29/16 
 
 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
 
BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB COMPANY, ) 
 
 
) 
 
Petitioner, 
) 
 
 
) 
S221038 
 
v. 
) 
 
 
) 
Ct.App. 1/2 A140035 
THE SUPERIOR COURT 
) 
OF SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY, 
) 
 
) 
San Francisco County 
 
Respondent; 
) 
Super. Ct. JCCP No. 4748 
                                                                        ) 
BRACY ANDERSON et al.,                          ) 
                                                                        ) 
                       Real Parties in Interest.            ) 
 
____________________________________) 
 
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS), a pharmaceutical manufacturer, 
conducts significant business and research activities in California but is neither 
incorporated nor headquartered here.  In March 2012, eight separate amended 
complaints were filed in San Francisco Superior Court by or on behalf of 678 
individuals, consisting of 86 California residents and 592 nonresidents, all of 
whom allegedly were prescribed and ingested Plavix, a drug created and marketed 
by BMS, and as a result suffered adverse consequences.  BMS contests the 
propriety of a California court‘s exercising personal jurisdiction over it for 
purposes of adjudicating the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims.   
Under the particular circumstances present here, we conclude personal 
jurisdiction is authorized by Code of Civil Procedure section 410.10, which 
2 
extends jurisdiction to the maximum extent permissible under the United States 
Constitution.  Although BMS‘s business contacts in California are insufficient to 
invoke general jurisdiction, which permits the exercise of jurisdiction over a 
defendant regardless of the subject of the litigation, we conclude the company‘s 
California activities are sufficiently related to the nonresident plaintiffs‘ suits to 
support the invocation of specific jurisdiction, under which personal jurisdiction is 
limited to specific litigation related to the defendant‘s state contacts.  (See Vons 
Companies, Inc. v. Seabest Foods, Inc. (1996) 14 Cal.4th 434, 446 (Vons).) 
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which held 
that BMS was subject to the personal jurisdiction of the California courts on the 
basis of specific jurisdiction. 
I.  FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 
BMS manufactures Plavix, a prescription drug used to inhibit blood 
clotting.  In the eight amended complaints filed in the superior court, 86 California 
residents and 592 residents of 33 other states sued BMS and McKesson 
Corporation, a pharmaceutical distributor headquartered in California, for injuries 
allegedly arising out of their use of Plavix.1  The state in which the largest number 
of plaintiffs reside is Texas, with 92 plaintiffs, followed by the 86 California 
plaintiffs, followed by Ohio, with 71 plaintiffs. 
Each amended complaint contains the same 13 causes of action:  strict 
products liability (based on both design defect and manufacturing defect); 
negligence; breach of implied warranty; breach of express warranty; deceit by 
                                              
1 
A ninth case, filed in Santa Clara Superior Court by the County of Santa 
Clara against defendants was also joined with the other eight cases and assigned to 
a coordination trial judge of the San Francisco Superior Court.  The complaint 
filed in that matter is not in the record before us nor is it a subject of dispute 
among the parties as to matters of personal jurisdiction.  
3 
concealment (Civ. Code, §§ 1709, 1710); negligent misrepresentation; fraud by 
concealment; unfair competition (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200); false or misleading 
advertising (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17500); injunctive relief for false or misleading 
advertising (Civ. Code, § 1750 et. seq.); wrongful death; and loss of consortium. 
The plaintiffs allege that defendants engaged in ―negligent and wrongful 
conduct in connection with the design, development, manufacture, testing, 
packaging, promoting, marketing, distribution, labeling, and/or sale of Plavix.‖  
According to the complaints, defendants allegedly promoted the drug to 
consumers and physicians by falsely representing it ―as providing greater 
cardiovascular benefits, while being safer and easier on a person‘s stomach than 
aspirin,‖ but defendants knew those claims were untrue because ingesting Plavix 
allegedly involves ―the risk of suffering a heart attack, stroke, internal bleeding, 
blood disorder or death [which] far outweighs any potential benefit.‖ 
Plaintiffs allege different injuries, and sometimes combinations of injuries, 
which they claim were caused from the ingestion of Plavix.  These injuries include 
bleeding, bleeding ulcers, gastrointestinal bleeding, cerebral bleeding, rectal 
bleeding, heart attack, stroke, hemorrhagic stroke, subdural hematoma, thrombotic 
thrombocytopenic purpura, and death.  The complaints allege that 18 of the 678 
individuals whose injuries underlay these actions died as the result of ingesting 
Plavix. 
The actions were assigned as a coordinated matter to a judge of the San 
Francisco Superior Court.   
BMS moved to quash service of summons on the ground that the court 
lacked personal jurisdiction over it to adjudicate the claims of the 592 nonresident 
plaintiffs, who are real parties in interest in this proceeding (hereafter referred to 
as ―the nonresident plaintiffs‖).  BMS noted that the complaints‘ allegations do not 
4 
include any factual claims that the nonresident plaintiffs‘ injuries occurred in 
California or that they had been treated for their injuries in California.  
In declarations supporting the motion, BMS officers stated that the 
company is incorporated in Delaware, is headquartered in New York City, and 
maintains substantial operations in New Jersey, including major research and 
development campuses.  BMS has approximately 6,475 employees in the New 
York and New Jersey area, comprising 51 percent of its United States workforce. 
BMS further asserted that its research and development of Plavix did not 
take place in California, nor was any work related to its labeling, packaging, 
regulatory approval, or its advertising or marketing strategy performed by any of 
its employees in this state.  BMS has never manufactured Plavix in California.  
These activities were instead performed or directed from the company‘s New 
York headquarters and New Jersey operating facilities.  According to data 
provided by the company, in a 12-month period ending in July 2012, BMS‘s sales 
revenue from Plavix sales in California constituted 1.1 percent of the company‘s 
total nationwide sales revenue of all of its products. 
But the declarations submitted by BMS also disclosed that the company 
maintains substantial operations in California, including five offices that are 
primarily research and laboratory facilities employing approximately 164 people.  
BMS additionally employs approximately 250 sales representatives in the state.  
BMS also has a small office in Sacramento to represent and advocate for the 
company in state government affairs.   
In opposition to the motion to quash, plaintiffs submitted materials showing 
that BMS sold almost 187 million Plavix pills to distributors and wholesalers in 
California in 2006-2012, with sales revenue of almost $918 million.  Furthermore, 
plaintiffs noted that BMS maintains a registered agent for service of process in 
California. 
5 
The superior court denied BMS‘s motion to quash service of summons, 
concluding the company‘s sales and other activities in California were sufficiently 
extensive to subject it to the general jurisdiction of the state courts.  
BMS petitioned the Court of Appeal for a writ of mandate, naming the 
nonresident plaintiffs as real parties in interest.  The Court of Appeal first 
summarily denied the petition on the same day as the United States Supreme Court 
announced its decision in Daimler AG v. Bauman (2014) 571 U.S. ___ [134 S.Ct. 
746] (Daimler), which clarified limits on general jurisdiction.  We granted review 
and transferred the matter back to the Court of Appeal for issuance of an order to 
show cause in light of Daimler.  After briefing and oral argument, the Court of 
Appeal again denied the writ, this time by an opinion holding that BMS‘s 
activities in California were insufficient to subject it to general jurisdiction in the 
state, but that, given the nature of the action and BMS‘s activities in California, 
our courts may properly exercise specific jurisdiction over BMS in this matter. 
We granted BMS‘s petition for review, requesting briefing on both types of 
personal jurisdiction, general and specific. 
II.  DISCUSSION 
Under Code of Civil Procedure section 410.10, California courts ―may 
exercise jurisdiction on any basis not inconsistent with the Constitution of this 
state or of the United States.‖  ―The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth 
Amendment constrains a State‘s authority to bind a nonresident defendant to a 
judgment of its courts.‖  (Walden v. Fiore (2014) 571 U.S. ___, ___ [134 S.Ct. 
1115, 1121].)  ―Due process limits on the State‘s adjudicative authority principally 
protect the liberty of the nonresident defendant — not the convenience of plaintiffs 
or third parties.‖  (Id. at p. ___ [134 S.Ct. at p. 1122].)   
Under the federal Constitution, a court exercising jurisdiction over a 
nonresident defendant comports with due process as long as the defendant ―has 
6 
such minimum contacts with the state that the assertion of jurisdiction does not 
violate ‗ ―traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.‖ ‘ ‖  (Vons, supra, 
14 Cal.4th at p. 444, quoting International Shoe Co. v. Washington (1945) 326 
U.S. 310, 316 (International Shoe).)  Plaintiffs bear the initial burden of proving 
state contacts sufficient to justify the exercise of jurisdiction.  (Vons, supra, 14 
Cal.4th at p. 449.)  The jurisdiction of courts to render judgment against a person 
is historically grounded in the courts‘ power over the person, originally premised 
on a person‘s presence within the territorial jurisdiction of the court.  
(International Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. at p. 316.)  Because ―the corporate 
personality is a fiction,‖ however, a corporation‘s ― ‗presence‘ ‖ in a state must be 
determined by the activities of its agents (ibid.), and the demands of due process in 
this context ―may be met by such contacts of the corporation with the state of the 
forum as make it reasonable, in the context of our federal system of government, 
to require the corporation to defend the particular suit which is brought there.‖  
(Id. at p. 317.)   
In some cases, the corporation‘s continuous activities within the state have 
been found ―so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit against it on 
causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct from those activities.‖  
(International Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. at p. 318.)  This has become known as 
―general,‖ or ―all-purpose,‖ jurisdiction.  (Daimler, supra, 571 U.S. ___ [134 S.Ct. 
746, 751, 754].) 
In other circumstances, where the company‘s activities in the forum state are 
more limited, general jurisdiction may be lacking but jurisdiction may nonetheless 
be proper because the litigation is derived from obligations that ―arise out of or are 
connected with the [company‘s] activities within the state.‖  (International Shoe, 
supra, 326 U.S. at pp. 319, 320.)  This has become known as ―specific,‖ or ―case-
linked,‖ jurisdiction.  (Daimler, supra, 571 U.S. at p. ___ [134 S.Ct. at pp. 751, 
7 
754]; Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown (2011) 564 U.S. ___, ___ 
[131 S.Ct. 2846, 2851] (Goodyear).)   
―When a defendant moves to quash service of process on jurisdictional 
grounds, the plaintiff has the initial burden of demonstrating facts justifying the 
exercise of jurisdiction.  [Citation.]  Once facts showing minimum contacts with 
the forum state are established, however, it becomes the defendant‘s burden to 
demonstrate that the exercise of jurisdiction would be unreasonable.  [Citation.] 
When there is conflicting evidence, the trial court‘s factual determinations are not 
disturbed on appeal if supported by substantial evidence.  [Citation.]  When no 
conflict in the evidence exists, however, the question of jurisdiction is purely one 
of law and the reviewing court engages in an independent review of the record.‖  
(Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 449.) 
Although the briefing and record at the trial court did not have the benefit of 
being informed by the high court‘s decision in Daimler, there appears to be no 
material factual conflicts nor any dispute over any factual findings in the superior 
court.  We, therefore, consider the possible exercise of each type of jurisdiction as 
a matter of law and on the undisputed facts.   
A.  General Jurisdiction 
1.  Case law concerning general jurisdiction 
The landmark 1945 decision of the United States Supreme Court in 
International Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. 310, serves as the starting point of modern 
jurisprudence concerning general jurisdiction.  Although the high court resolved 
that case under a specific jurisdiction theory, it also described general jurisdiction 
as embracing ―instances in which the continuous corporate operations within a 
state were thought so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit against it on 
causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct from those activities.‖  
8 
(International Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. at p. 318.)  Subsequent to International Shoe, 
the high court has addressed the concept of general jurisdiction in only a handful 
of cases. 
In Perkins v. Benguet Mining Co. (1952) 342 U.S. 437 (Perkins), the high 
court concluded that a company that had temporarily ceased mining operations 
abroad and had relocated its limited corporate activities to Ohio could be sued in 
Ohio on a cause of action unrelated to its Ohio corporate activities.  (Id. at 
pp. 447-448.)  In Perkins, because of the wartime Japanese occupation of the 
Philippine Islands, a Philippine corporation had ceased mining operations on all its 
properties there, but it maintained limited corporate activities through its president 
and principal shareholder who had relocated to Ohio.  A shareholder then sued the 
company in Ohio for unpaid dividends and for its failure to issue her certificates 
for her shares of stock.  The high court applied the standard set forth in 
International Shoe and concluded that the president‘s business activities through 
his home in Ohio reflected ―a continuous and systematic supervision of the 
necessarily limited wartime activities of the company.‖  (Perkins, supra, 342 U.S. 
at p. 448.) 
The high court in Perkins explained that after the company‘s mining 
operations ceased due to the occupation, the president of the company returned to 
his residence in Ohio.  He kept a home office there, maintaining the company‘s 
files.  From that office he ―carried on correspondence relating to the business of 
the company and to its employees,‖ drew and distributed salary checks on behalf 
of the company, used and maintained two active Ohio bank accounts carrying 
substantial balances of the company‘s funds, retained another Ohio bank to act as 
transfer agent for the stock of the company, held several directors‘ meetings in his 
home or home office, ―supervised policies dealing with the rehabilitation of the 
corporation‘s properties in the Philippines‖ from his Ohio home office, and 
9 
dispatched funds from Ohio to cover purchases of machinery for such 
rehabilitation.  (Perkins, supra, 342 U.S. at p. 448.) 
The high court observed that although ―no mining properties in Ohio were 
owned or operated by the company, many of its wartime activities were directed 
from Ohio and were being given the personal attention of its president in that State 
at the time he was served with summons.‖  (Perkins, supra, 342 U.S. at p. 448.)  
Thus, the company‘s wartime operations had been effectively shifted almost 
entirely to the president‘s home office in Ohio, which meant that ―under the 
circumstances above recited, it would not violate federal due process for Ohio 
either to take or decline jurisdiction of the corporation in this proceeding.‖  (Ibid.)  
In other words, the requirements for the exercise of general jurisdiction were met.    
In Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia v. Hall (1984) 466 U.S. 408 
(Helicopteros), the high court concluded that general jurisdiction was not 
supported in the forum state when the defendant corporation was based abroad, 
had no physical presence in the forum state other than limited business purchases 
and contract negotiations, and the cause of action arose abroad and was unrelated 
to the company‘s contacts with the forum state.  In Helicopteros, the survivors of 
four United States citizens, who had died in a helicopter crash in Peru, filed 
wrongful death actions in Texas against the owner and operator of the helicopter, a 
Colombian corporation.  (Id. at pp. 409-410.)  Prior to the helicopter crash, the 
Colombian corporation had conducted contract negotiations in Texas with the 
decedents‘ Texas employer to provide helicopter services, bought helicopters in 
Texas, and sent employees there for training, but did not conduct other operations 
or maintain a place of business in the state.  None of the plaintiffs or their 
decedents resided in Texas.  (Id. at pp. 410-412.)  The high court concluded that 
neither the negotiation of a single contract and receipt of contractual payment 
through a Texas bank, nor the purchase of helicopters and associated employee 
10 
training sessions in Texas, constituted ―the kind of continuous and systematic 
general business contacts‖ that had justified general jurisdiction in Perkins.  
(Helicopteros at p. 416; see id. at pp. 416-418.) 
More recently, in Goodyear, supra, 564 U.S. ___ [131 S.Ct. 2846], and 
Daimler, supra, 571 U.S. ___ [134 S.Ct. 746], the high court significantly 
elaborated upon its analysis of general jurisdiction, clarifying that in order to 
support the exercise of general jurisdiction over a corporation its contacts with the 
forum state must be so extensive as to render the company essentially ― ‗at 
home‘ ‖ in the state.  (Daimler, supra, 571 U.S. at p. ___ [134 S.Ct. at p. 751; see 
Goodyear, supra, 564 U.S. at p. ___ [131 S.Ct. at p. 2851].)  The United States 
Supreme Court‘s description of general jurisdiction for purposes of the federal due 
process clause, as set forth in Goodyear and Daimler, is binding upon us and, as 
explained below, dictates the conclusion that BMS is not subject to the general 
jurisdiction of California courts. 
In Goodyear, the high court concluded that the plaintiffs failed to establish 
support for the exercise of general jurisdiction where the defendant companies 
were based abroad, sold only a limited quantity of their products in the forum 
state, and the cause of action — involving the defendants‘ products sold abroad — 
also arose abroad.  In that case, two young men from North Carolina were killed in 
a bus accident outside Paris, France.  (Goodyear, supra, 564 U.S. at p. ___ [131 
S.Ct. at p. 2851].)  Their parents attributed the accident to an allegedly defective 
tire manufactured by Goodyear‘s subsidiary in Turkey and filed suit in a North 
Carolina state court, naming Goodyear and its subsidiaries in Turkey, France, and 
Luxembourg as defendants.  (Id. at pp. ___-___ [131 S.Ct. at pp. 2851-2852].)  
Although a small percentage of their tires was distributed in North Carolina by 
other Goodyear affiliates, the foreign subsidiaries challenged the North Carolina 
court‘s exercise of general jurisdiction over them, contending that they did no 
11 
direct business and employed no workers in North Carolina.  (Id. at pp. ___, ___ 
[131 S.Ct. at pp. 2850, 2852].) 
The high court first noted that North Carolina courts lacked specific 
jurisdiction to adjudicate the controversy because the accident had occurred 
abroad and the allegedly defective tire had been manufactured and sold abroad.  
(Goodyear, supra, 564 U.S. at p. ___ [131 S.Ct. at p. 2851].)  The court then held 
that the defendant corporations‘ contacts with North Carolina were also 
insufficient for general jurisdiction:  ―Unlike the defendant in Perkins, whose sole 
wartime business activity was conducted in Ohio, petitioners are in no sense at 
home in North Carolina.  Their attenuated connections to the State . . . fall far 
short of . . . ‗the continuous and systematic general business contacts‘ necessary to 
empower North Carolina to entertain suit against them on claims unrelated to 
anything that connects them to the State.‖  (Goodyear, supra, at p. ___ [131 S.Ct. 
at p. 2857], quoting Helicopteros, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 416.)  The Goodyear court 
explained its ―at home‖ rule for corporations as analogous to a natural person‘s 
domicile in the forum state:  ―For an individual, the paradigm forum for the 
exercise of general jurisdiction is the individual‘s domicile; for a corporation, it is 
an equivalent place, one in which the corporation is fairly regarded as at home.‖  
(Goodyear, supra, at p. ___ [131 S.Ct. at pp. 2853-2854].)   
Three years after Goodyear, in Daimler, supra, 571 U.S. ___ [134 S.Ct. 746], 
the court further elaborated on its articulation of the ―at home‖ requirement.  In 
Daimler, Argentinian residents brought an action in California against 
DaimlerChrysler AG (DaimlerChrysler), a German public stock company, alleging 
that its wholly owned subsidiary, Mercedes-Benz Argentina, had ―collaborated 
with state security forces to kidnap, detain, torture, and kill‖ the plaintiffs or their 
relatives in Argentina during that nation‘s ― ‗Dirty War.‘ ‖  (Daimler, supra, at 
p. ___ [134 S.Ct. at pp. 750-751].)  The plaintiffs‘ claim of general jurisdiction 
12 
over DaimlerChrysler in California was based in significant part on the California 
activities of another DaimlerChrysler subsidiary, Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC 
(MBUSA).  Although incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in New Jersey, 
MBUSA had substantial facilities in California, using them to import and 
distribute Mercedes-Benz automobiles in the state.  (Id. at p. ___ [134 S.Ct. at 
pp. 751-752].) 
Even attributing to DaimlerChrysler the activities of its subsidiary, MBUSA, 
the high court nevertheless found DaimlerChrysler‘s contacts with California 
insufficient to justify the exercise of general jurisdiction over it.  (Daimler, supra, 
571 U.S. at p. ___ [134 S.Ct. at p. 760].)  The court reiterated its observation in 
Goodyear that a corporation‘s state of incorporation and its principal place of 
business are the two ―paradigm all-purpose forums.‖  (Daimler, supra, at p. ___ 
[134 S.Ct. at p. 760.)  Although it did not limit general jurisdiction to those two 
circumstances, the Daimler court explained that general jurisdiction may not be 
based merely on activities in the forum state that can be characterized as 
continuous and systematic; rather, the corporation‘s activities must be ― ‗so 
―continuous and systematic‖ as to render [it] essentially at home in the forum 
State.‘ ‖  (Id. at p. ___ [134 S.Ct. at p. 761], quoting Goodyear, supra, 564 U.S. at 
p. ___ [131 S.Ct. at p. 2851].) 
The Daimler court acknowledged that in an exceptional case such as Perkins 
―a corporation‘s operations in a forum other than its formal place of incorporation 
or principal place of business may be so substantial and of such a nature as to 
render the corporation at home in that State.‖  (Daimler, supra, 571 U.S. at p. ___, 
fn. 19 [134 S.Ct. at p. 761, fn. 19].)  The court, however, emphasized the truly 
― ‗exceptional facts‘ ‖ of Perkins, where ―[g]iven the wartime circumstances, Ohio 
could be considered ‗a surrogate for the place of incorporation or head office.‘ ‖  
(Daimler, supra, at p. ___, fn. 8 [134 S.Ct. at p. 756, fn. 8].)  DaimlerChrysler‘s 
13 
activities in California, the court observed, ―plainly do not approach that level.‖  
(Id. at p. ___, fn. 19 [134 S.Ct. at p. 761, fn. 19.) 
Furthermore, in responding to a concurring opinion by Justice Sotomayor, 
the Daimler majority made clear that the general jurisdiction inquiry ―does not 
‗focu[s] solely on the magnitude of the defendant‘s in-state contacts.‘ ‖  (Daimler, 
supra, 571 U.S. at p. ___, fn. 20 [134 S.Ct. at p. 762, fn. 20].)  Instead, general 
jurisdiction ―calls for an appraisal of a corporation‘s activities in their entirety, 
nationwide and worldwide.‖  (Ibid.)  Otherwise, a corporation with significant 
operations in many states would be deemed at home in all of them.  (Ibid.)  The 
majority reasoned that to allow the adjudication in California of a dispute arising 
solely in Argentina merely based on MBUSA‘s sales activities in the state would 
give the same global adjudicatory reach to every state in which DaimlerChrysler 
or its subsidiary had sizeable sales.  The court rejected such an ―exorbitant 
exercise[] of all-purpose jurisdiction‖ because it would defeat the ability of out-of-
state defendants to structure their conduct so as to have some predictability 
regarding the possibility of being subjected to litigation in a given forum state.  
(Id. at p. ___ [134 S.Ct. at pp. 761-762].) 
The high court also made clear that because the plaintiffs in Daimler had 
never attempted to argue that California could assert specific jurisdiction over 
DaimlerChrysler, the court had no reason to undertake such an analysis.  (Daimler, 
supra, 571 U.S. at p. ___ [134 S.Ct. at p. 758].)   
2.  Plaintiffs have failed to show that BMS is subject to general jurisdiction in 
California 
The United States Supreme Court‘s at home rule for general jurisdiction over 
a corporation, as articulated in Goodyear and Daimler, and, to some extent 
Perkins, defeats the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claim that California may assert general 
jurisdiction over BMS.  BMS may be regarded as being at home in Delaware, 
14 
where it is incorporated, or perhaps in New York and New Jersey, where it 
maintains its principal business centers.  Although the company‘s ongoing 
activities in California are substantial, they fall far short of establishing that is it at 
home in this state for purposes of general jurisdiction. 
Similar to the California subsidiary in Daimler, BMS has sold large volumes 
of its products in California.  Nevertheless, the high court plainly rejected the 
theory that a corporation is at home wherever its sales are ―sizeable.‖  (Daimler, 
supra, 571 U.S. at p.___ [134 S.Ct. at p. 761].)  BMS employed approximately 
164 people in California in addition to its 250 sales representatives in this state.  
But the company‘s total California operations are much less extensive than its 
activities elsewhere in the United States.  As noted earlier, in New York and New 
Jersey alone, BMS employed approximately 6,475 people, 51 percent of its United 
States workforce.  In assessing BMS‘s California business activities in comparison 
to the company‘s business operations ―in their entirety, nationwide,‖ we find 
nothing to warrant a conclusion that BMS is at home in California.  (Daimler, 
supra, at p. ___, fn. 20 [134 S.Ct. at p. 762, fn. 20].)  As the high court warned in 
Daimler, to conclude that BMS may be sued in California on any cause of action, 
whether or not related to its activities here, under a theory of general jurisdiction, 
would be to extend globally the adjudicatory reach of every state in which the 
company has significant business operations. 
The nonresident plaintiffs stress that in neither Goodyear nor Daimler did the 
high court strictly limit general jurisdiction to a company‘s state of incorporation 
or its principal place of business.  Nevertheless, both decisions make clear that the 
suitability of general jurisdiction is rooted in the concept of an individual‘s 
domicile and its equivalent place for a corporation.  (Daimler, supra, 571 U.S. at 
p. ___ [134 S.Ct. at p. 760]; Goodyear, supra, 564 U.S. 437 [131 S.Ct. at 
pp. 2853-2854].)  Therefore, setting aside the state of a company‘s incorporation 
15 
or its headquarters, a plaintiff has the burden of showing that a company‘s conduct 
in a given forum state may be so substantial and of such a kind as to render it at 
home there. 
Goodyear and Daimler approved the finding of general jurisdiction in 
Perkins, supra, 342 U.S. 437.  That case involved the exceptional fact pattern of a 
mining company‘s wartime relocation of its overseas operations to Ohio, which 
functioned as the equivalent of the corporation‘s headquarters through a home 
office in the company president‘s own residence.  Quite literally, the mining 
company in Perkins was also at home in this unique context.  But nothing in the 
record of the present matter suggests that California has served as the equivalent 
of BMS‘s headquarters, even temporarily. 
The nonresident plaintiffs also rely on the fact that BMS has long been 
registered to do business in California and has maintained an agent for service of 
process here.  California law, however, requires a foreign corporation transacting 
business here to name an agent in the state for service of process.  (Corp. Code, 
§ 2105, subd. (a)(5).)  As the high court has explained, ―[t]he purpose of state 
statutes requiring the appointment by foreign corporations of agents upon whom 
process may be served is primarily to subject them to the jurisdiction of local 
courts in controversies growing out of transactions within the State.‖  (Morris & 
Co. v. Ins. Co. (1929) 279 U.S. 405, 408-409, italics added.)  Accordingly, a 
corporation‘s appointment of an agent for service of process, when required by 
state law, cannot compel its surrender to general jurisdiction for disputes unrelated 
to its California transactions.  The ―designation of an agent for service of process 
and qualification to do business in California alone are insufficient to permit 
general jurisdiction.‖  (Thomson v. Anderson (2003) 113 Cal.App.4th 258, 268, 
citing DVI, Inc. v. Superior Court (2002) 104 Cal.App.4th 1080, 1095; Gray Line 
Tours v. Reynolds Electrical & Engineering Co. (1987) 193 Cal.App.3d 190, 194.)   
16 
Finally, the nonresident plaintiffs argue BMS is subject to general 
jurisdiction in California because it has contracted for distribution of Plavix with 
McKesson Corporation, which is headquartered in San Francisco, allowing BMS 
―to make a substantial profit within California through McKesson‘s California 
contacts.‖  As explained above, however, BMS‘s sizeable sales of its products in 
California are insufficient, under Goodyear, supra, 564 U.S. ___ [131 S.Ct. 2846] 
and Daimler, supra, 571 U.S. ___ [134 S.Ct. 746], to make it at home in this state 
and subject it to the general jurisdiction of our courts.  That some of these sales 
were made to or through a distributor headquartered here does not change the 
analysis. 
As a result, we conclude that BMS is not subject to the general jurisdiction of 
the California courts. 
B.  Specific Jurisdiction 
1.  Case law concerning specific jurisdiction 
Although the high court‘s recent cases have narrowed the scope of general 
jurisdiction, in Daimler the majority specifically commented on the continued 
viability and breadth of the court‘s preexisting specific jurisdiction jurisprudence.  
In responding to the concern expressed by Justice Sotomayor in her separate 
opinion in Daimler that the court was committing an injustice by limiting the 
availability of general jurisdiction, the majority remarked that ―Justice Sotomayor 
treats specific jurisdiction as though it were barely there‖ and that ―[g]iven the 
many decades in which specific jurisdiction has flourished, it would be hard to 
conjure up an example of the ‗deep injustice‘ Justice Sotomayor predicts as a 
consequence of our holding that California is not an all-purpose forum for suits 
against [DaimlerChrysler].‖  (Daimler, supra, 571 U.S. at p. ___, fn. 10 [134 S.Ct. 
at p. 758, fn. 10].) 
17 
The basic precepts governing specific jurisdiction set forth in pre-Daimler 
decisions are well settled.  In ascertaining the existence of specific jurisdiction, 
courts must analyze the ― ‗relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the 
litigation.‘ ‖  (Helicopteros, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 414, quoting Shaffer v. Heitner 
(1977) 433 U.S. 186, 204.)  The question of whether a court may exercise specific 
jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant involves examining (1) whether the 
defendant has ― ‗purposefully directed‘ ‖ its activities at the forum state (Keeton v. 
Hustler Magazine, Inc. (1984) 465 U.S. 770, 774 (Keeton)); (2) whether the 
plaintiff‘s claims arise out of or are related to these forum-directed activities 
(Helicopteros, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 414); and (3) whether the exercise of 
jurisdiction is reasonable and does not offend ― ‗ ―traditional notions of fair play 
and substantial justice.‖ ‘ ‖ 2  (Asahi Metal Industry Co. v. Superior Court (1987) 
480 U.S. 102, 113 (Asahi), quoting International Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. at p. 316.) 
In our own jurisprudence, we have said that a plaintiff has the initial burden 
of demonstrating facts to support the first two factors, which establish the requisite 
minimum contacts with the forum state.  The burden then shifts to the defendant to 
show that the exercise of jurisdiction would be unreasonable under the third factor.  
(Snowney v. Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. (2005) 35 Cal.4th 1054, 1062 
(Snowney); see also Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz (1985) 471 U.S. 462, 477 
(Burger King) [―where a defendant who purposefully has directed his activities at 
forum residents seeks to defeat jurisdiction, he must present a compelling case that 
                                              
2 
BMS states it is not contesting the first or third factors and that the 
company is contesting only whether the claims of the nonresident plaintiffs are 
related to its activities in California.  But, as we will explain, BMS‘s arguments 
are not as narrow as it contends.  Accordingly, we will examine here all three 
factors relevant to the specific jurisdiction analysis. 
18 
the presence of some other considerations would render jurisdiction 
unreasonable‖].) 
Our courts have also explained that the relatedness requirement for specific 
jurisdiction is determined under the ― ‗substantial connection‘ test,‖ which ―is 
satisfied if ‗there is a substantial nexus or connection between the defendant‘s 
forum activities and the plaintiff‘s claim.‘  [Citation.]‖  (Snowney, supra, 35 
Cal.4th at p. 1068.)  This test requires courts to evaluate the nature of the 
defendant‘s activities in the forum and the relationship of the claim to those 
activities in order to answer the ultimate question under the due process clause:  
whether the exercise of jurisdiction in the forum is fair.  Under the substantial 
connection test, ― ‗the intensity of forum contacts and the connection of the claim 
to those contacts are inversely related.‘ ‖  (Ibid.)  ― ‗[T]he more wide ranging the 
defendant‘s forum contacts, the more readily is shown a connection between the 
forum contacts and the claim.‘  [Citation.]  Thus, ‗[a] claim need not arise directly 
from the defendant‘s forum contacts in order to be sufficiently related to the 
contact to warrant the exercise of specific jurisdiction.‘ . . . Indeed, ‗ ― ‗[o]nly 
when the operative facts of the controversy are not related to the defendant‘s 
contact with the state can it be said that the cause of action does not arise from that 
[contact].‘ ‖ ‘  [Citation.]‖  (Ibid.)  Finally, the defendant‘s activities in the forum 
state need not be either the proximate cause or the ―but for‖ cause of the plaintiff‘s 
injuries.  (Ibid.) 
2.  Purposeful availment 
As the high court has explained, ―[t]he Due Process Clause protects an 
individual‘s liberty interest in not being subject to the binding judgments of a 
forum with which he has established no meaningful ‗contacts, ties, or relations,‘ ‖ 
and that ―[b]y requiring that individuals have ‗fair warning that a particular 
19 
activity may subject [them] to the jurisdiction of a foreign sovereign, ‖‘ the due 
process clause affords predictability and allows potential defendants to tailor their 
conduct ― ‗with some minimum assurance as to where that conduct will and will 
not render them liable to suit.‘ ‖  (Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at pp. 471-472.)   
―Where a forum seeks to assert specific jurisdiction over an out-of-state 
defendant who has not consented to suit there, this ‗fair warning‘ requirement is 
satisfied if the defendant has ‗purposefully directed‘ his activities at residents of 
the forum, [citation], and the litigation results from alleged injuries that ‗arise out 
of or relate to‘ those activities.‖  (Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at p. 472, fn. 
omitted.)  These activities cannot be the result of the unilateral actions of another 
party or a third person, because the ― ‗purposeful availment‘ requirement ensures 
that a defendant will not be haled into a jurisdiction solely as a result of ‗random,‘ 
‗fortuitous,‘ or ‗attenuated‘ contacts.‖  (Id. at p. 475.)  ―When a [nonresident 
defendant] ‗purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities 
within the forum State,‘ [citation], it has clear notice that it is subject to suit there, 
and can act to alleviate the risk of burdensome litigation by procuring insurance, 
passing the expected costs on to customers, or, if the risks are too great, severing 
its connection with the State.‖  (World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson (1980) 
444 U.S. 286, 297 (World-Wide Volkswagen).) 
In Snowney, a California resident filed a class action in this state against a 
group of Nevada hotels, alleging several causes of action related to their purported 
failure to provide notice of an energy surcharge imposed on hotel guests.  
(Snowney, supra, 35 Cal.4th at pp. 1059-1060.)  The hotels conducted no business 
and had no bank accounts or employees in California, but they advertised heavily 
in this state using California-based media, including billboards, newspapers, and 
ads aired on radio and television stations, as well as a Web site for room quotes 
20 
and reservations.  They also received a significant portion of their business from 
California residents who stayed at their hotels.  (Id. at p. 1059.) 
This court held that the Nevada hotels had purposefully availed themselves of 
the privilege of doing business in California because their Web site had touted 
―the proximity of their hotels to California‖ and provided ―driving directions from 
California to their hotels,‖ thereby ―specifically target[ing] residents of 
California.‖  (Snowney, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 1064.)  Furthermore, ―[a]side from 
their Web site specifically targeting California residents, defendants advertised 
extensively in California through billboards, newspapers, and radio and television 
stations located in California‖ and ―regularly sent mailings advertising their hotels 
to selected California residents.‖  (Id. at p. 1065.)  ―In doing so, defendants 
necessarily availed themselves of the benefits of doing business in California and 
could reasonably expect to be subject to the jurisdiction of courts in California.‖  
(Ibid.) 
In the present matter, there is no question that BMS has purposely availed 
itself of the privilege of conducting activities in California, invoking the benefits 
and protection of its laws, and BMS does not contend otherwise.  Not only did 
BMS market and advertise Plavix in this state, it employs sales representatives in 
California, contracted with a California-based pharmaceutical distributor, operates 
research and laboratory facilities in this state, and even has an office in the state 
capital to lobby the state on the company‘s behalf.  As in Snowney, supra, 35 
Cal.4th 1054, BMS actively and purposefully sought to promote sales of Plavix to 
California residents, resulting in California sales of nearly $1 billion over six 
years.  Moreover, unlike the Nevada hotels in Snowney, BMS maintains a physical 
presence in California, employing well over 400 people here. 
Accordingly, we conclude that BMS has purposefully availed itself of the 
benefits of California such that the first element of the test for specific personal 
21 
jurisdiction is met concerning matters arising from or related to BMS‘s contacts 
with the state.  On the basis of these extensive contacts relating to the design,  
marketing, and distribution of Plavix, BMS would be on clear notice that it is 
subject to suit in California concerning such matters.  (World-Wide Volkswagen, 
supra, 444 U.S. at p. 19.)   
3.  Arises from or is related to 
As previously described, ―for the purpose of establishing jurisdiction the 
intensity of forum contacts and the connection of the claim to those contacts are 
inversely related.‖  (Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 452.)  ―[T]he more wide ranging 
the defendant‘s forum contacts, the more readily is shown a connection between 
the forum contacts and the claim.‖  (Id. at p. 455.)  Thus, ―[a] claim need not arise 
directly from the defendant‘s forum contacts in order to be sufficiently related to 
the contact to warrant the exercise of specific jurisdiction.‖  (Id. at p. 452.) 
In Vons, we assessed, on relatedness grounds, whether California courts 
could exercise specific jurisdiction over nonresident companies for causes of 
action involving out-of-state injuries that did not arise directly from their 
California contacts.  (Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th 434.)  The plaintiffs in Vons were 
restaurant franchisees who brought an action for loss of business after 
contaminated hamburger meat caused illnesses in California and Washington, 
resulting in adverse publicity.  In California, the franchisees sued two parties:  the 
franchisor and the hamburger supplier, Vons Companies, Inc. (Vons), which 
processed hamburger patties in California and supplied them to the franchisor.  
Vons cross-complained against the franchisor and two Washington franchisees, 
suing them for negligence and indemnification for failing to properly cook the 
hamburger meat at restaurants in Washington, causing the injuries and deaths to 
customers there that gave rise to their joint liability with Vons.  In Vons, the issue 
22 
was whether the California court had specific jurisdiction over these two 
Washington-based franchisees, Seabest Foods, Inc., and Washington Restaurant 
Management, Inc. (WRMI).  (Id. at pp. 440-442.) 
Seabest‘s and WRMI‘s contacts with California included food purchases 
from California suppliers, sending personnel to franchisor training sessions in 
California, remitting franchise payments to California, permitting the franchisor‘s 
inspection of their restaurants by its California-based inspectors, and the 
negotiation of their franchise agreements in California, which agreements stated 
that any disputes would be governed by California law.  Because Vons was not a 
party to the franchise contracts for either Seabest or WRMI, those franchisees‘ 
contacts with California did not directly give rise to the causes of action asserted 
by Vons.  (Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 452.)  Nevertheless, this court found 
personal jurisdiction was properly exercised over them in California because the 
forum contacts bore a substantial relation to the cause of action.  We explained 
that requiring the two Washington franchisees to answer to Vons‘s claim ―is not to 
allow a third party unilaterally to draw them into a connection with the state; 
rather, it was Seabest and WRMI who established the connection.‖  (Id. at p. 451.) 
This court further elaborated:  ―A claim need not arise directly from the 
defendant‘s forum contacts in order to be sufficiently related to the contact to 
warrant the exercise of specific jurisdiction.  Rather, as long as the claim bears a 
substantial connection to the nonresident‘s forum contacts, the exercise of specific 
jurisdiction is appropriate.  The due process clause is concerned with protecting 
nonresident defendants from being brought unfairly into court in the forum, on the 
basis of random contacts.  That constitutional provision, however, does not 
provide defendants with a shield against jurisdiction when the defendant 
purposefully has availed himself or herself of benefits in the forum.‖  (Vons, 
supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 452.) 
23 
In the present matter, plaintiffs allege that BMS negligently designed and 
manufactured Plavix, failed to disclose material information in its advertising and 
promotion of Plavix and fraudulently and falsely advertised and promoted the 
product, and that BMS is liable to those who relied on such representations and 
were injured by Plavix.  Their complaints also contend that ―Plavix was heavily 
marketed directly to consumers through television, magazine and internet 
advertising.‖  BMS does not contest that its marketing, promotion, and distribution 
of Plavix was nationwide and was associated with California-based sales 
representatives and a California distributor, McKesson Corporation, which 
plaintiffs allege is jointly liable.   
 
The California plaintiffs‘ claims concerning the alleged misleading 
marketing and promotion of Plavix and injuries arising out of its distribution to 
and ingestion by California plaintiffs certainly arise from BMS‘s purposeful 
contacts with this state, and BMS does not deny that it can be sued for such claims 
in California.  As to the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims, the Court of Appeal 
understood plaintiffs‘ complaints as alleging that BMS sold Plavix to both the 
California plaintiffs and the nonresident plaintiffs as part of a common nationwide 
course of distribution.  BMS has not taken issue with that characterization, nor has 
it asserted that either the product itself or the representations it made about the 
product differed from state to state.  Both the resident and nonresident plaintiffs‘ 
claims are based on the same allegedly defective product and the assertedly 
misleading marketing and promotion of that product, which allegedly caused 
injuries in and outside the state.  Thus, the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims bear a 
substantial connection to BMS‘s contacts in California.  BMS‘s nationwide 
marketing, promotion, and distribution of Plavix created a substantial nexus 
between the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims and the company‘s contacts in 
California concerning Plavix. 
24 
Plaintiffs also allege that BMS negligently developed and designed Plavix, 
which serves as the basis of its claims of products liability, negligence, and 
breaches of express and implied warranties.  BMS maintains research and 
laboratory facilities in California, and it presumably enjoys the protection of our 
laws related to those activities.  Although there is no claim that Plavix itself was 
designed and developed in these facilities, the fact that the company engages in 
research and product development in these California facilities is related to 
plaintiffs‘ claims that BMS engaged in a course of conduct of negligent research 
and design that led to their injuries, even if those claims do not arise out of BMS‘s 
research conduct in this state.  Accordingly, BMS‘s research and development 
activity in California provides an additional connection between the nonresident 
plaintiffs‘ claims and the company‘s activities in California. 
BMS and our dissenting colleagues attempt to characterize the claims of the 
California plaintiffs as ―parallel‖ to and failing to ―intersect‖ with the nonresident 
plaintiffs‘ claims and argue based on this characterization that BMS‘s conduct in 
California is insufficiently related to the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims.  More 
specifically, BMS contends that the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims would be 
exactly the same if BMS had no contact whatsoever with California.  This 
characterization ignores the uncontested fact that all the plaintiffs‘ claims arise out 
of BMS‘s nationwide marketing and distribution of Plavix.  The claims are based 
not on ―similar‖ conduct, as our dissenting colleagues contend, but instead on a 
single, coordinated, nationwide course of conduct directed out of BMS‘s New 
York headquarters and New Jersey operations center and implemented by 
distributors and salespersons across the country.  (See Cornelison v. Chaney 
(1976) 16 Cal.3d 143,  151 [reasoning that the interstate nature of a defendant‘s 
business, while ―not an independent basis of jurisdiction‖ weighs ―in favor of 
requiring him to defend here‖].) 
25 
Moreover, the argument that claims based on a nationwide course of conduct 
fail to establish relatedness for purposes of minimum contacts rests on the invalid 
assumption that BMS‘s forum contacts must bear some substantive legal relevance 
to the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims, as the dissent explicitly contends.  Yet in 
Vons, this court carefully considered and ultimately rejected such a substantive 
relevance requirement.  (Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 475 [―we conclude that the 
substantive relevance test is inappropriate‖].)  Rather, it is sufficient if ―because of 
the defendants‘ relationship with the forum, it is not unfair to require that they 
answer in a California court for an alleged injury that is substantially connected to 
the defendants‘ forum contacts.‖  (Id. at p. 453.)  Here, BMS‘s forum contacts, 
including its California-based research and development facilities, are 
substantially connected to the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims because those contacts 
are part of the nationwide marketing and distribution of Plavix, a drug BMS 
researched and developed, that gave rise to all the plaintiffs‘ claims. 
BMS relies on two cases to contend that California courts may not exercise 
specific jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant sued by a nonresident plaintiff 
for injuries occurring outside the state.  But in both cases, the defendant company 
conducted no business in California and had no employees here.  (Fisher 
Governor Co. v. Superior Court (1959) 53 Cal.2d 222, 224 [the defendant had ―no 
employees or property in California and has not appointed an agent to receive 
service of process here‖]; Boaz v. Boyle & Co. (1995) 40 Cal.App.4th 700, 715 
(Boaz) [the defendant had ―not been licensed to do business in California, and . . . 
had neither salespersons, employees or representatives here, nor any offices, bank 
accounts, records or property in this state‖].)  
Our dissenting colleagues also rely on Boaz and a pharmaceutical case from 
the First Circuit, Glater v. Eli Lilly & Co. (1st Cir. 1984) 744 F.2d 213, which held 
that specific jurisdiction had not been established because the plaintiff‘s cause of 
26 
action did not ―arise from‖ the company‘s forum activities.  (Id at p. 216.)  
Although the facts of Glater are also involve the sales and marketing of an 
allegedly defective drug, the pharmaceutical company‘s contacts with the forum 
state, New Hampshire, appear to have been far less substantial than BMS‘s 
contacts to California. 3 
Moreover, none of these cases had the benefit of our reasoning in Vons, 
where we made clear that we had adopted a sliding scale approach to specific 
jurisdiction in which we recognized that ―the more wide ranging the defendant‘s 
forum contacts, the more readily is shown a connection between the forum 
contacts and the claim.‖  (Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 455.)  As previously 
described, BMS‘s contacts with California are substantial and the company has 
enjoyed sizeable revenues from the sales of its product here — the very product 
that is the subject of the claims of all of the plaintiffs.  BMS‘s extensive contacts 
with California establish minimum contacts based on a less direct connection 
between BMS‘s forum activities and plaintiffs‘ claims than might otherwise be 
required. 
In sum, taking into account all of BMS‘s activities in this state and their 
relation to the causes of action at issue here, we conclude that the second element 
of specific jurisdiction is met, and hence, absent a showing to the contrary by 
                                              
3 
In addition, the dissent relies on Hanson v. Denckla (1958) 357 U.S. 235, 
where the plaintiffs filed suit in Florida against a Delaware-based trustee who had 
no purposeful contacts with Florida, other than those caused by the unilateral 
activity of the plaintiffs.  The dissent‘s reliance on this case is inapposite because 
the high court concluded that the defendant in that matter had not purposefully 
availed herself ―of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State, 
thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws.‖  (Id. at p. 253.)  Here, the 
parties do not contest that BMS has purposefully availed itself of California law. 
27 
BMS, it would be consistent with due process for it to be subject to litigation in 
this state concerning injuries allegedly caused by its product Plavix, including 
those injuries occurring out of state.  Not only did BMS purposefully avail itself of 
the benefits of California by its extensive marketing and distribution of Plavix in 
this state and by contracting with a California distributor and employing hundreds 
of California-based salespersons, resulting in its substantial sales of that product 
here, but the company also maintains significant research and development 
facilities in California.  All of plaintiffs‘ claims either arose from these activities 
or are related to those activities.  The circumstance that numerous nonresident 
plaintiffs have filed their claims alongside those of resident plaintiffs does not alter 
or detract from this substantial nexus. 
As previously discussed, the due process protections afforded by the doctrine 
of specific jurisdiction are designed to give a potential nonresident defendant 
adequate notice that it is subject to suit there, and, accordingly, a prospective 
defendant can assess the extent of that risk and take measures to mitigate such risk 
or eliminate it entirely by severing its connection with the state.  (World-Wide 
Volkswagen, supra, 444 U.S. at p. 297.)  Indeed, far from taking measures to 
mitigate the risk of suit in particular forums, BMS embraced this risk by 
coordinating a single nationwide marketing and distribution effort and by 
engaging in research and development in California.  In that regard, BMS was on 
notice that it could be sued in California by nonresident plaintiffs.  In fact, our 
courts have frequently handled nationwide class actions involving numerous 
nonresident plaintiffs.  (See Discover Bank v. Superior Court (2005) 36 Cal.4th 
148; Washington Mutual Bank v. Superior Court (2001) 24 Cal.4th 906, 915; 
Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. v. Superior Court (1999) 19 Cal.4th 1036; 
Rutledge v. Hewlett-Packard Co. (2015) 238 Cal.App.4th 1164; Canon U.S.A., 
Inc. v. Superior Court (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 1.) 
28 
To the extent that BMS‘s arguments imply that a California court lacks 
personal jurisdiction over BMS to adjudicate the claims of the nonresident 
plaintiffs simply because the nonresident plaintiffs have no connection to and did 
not suffer any Plavix-related injuries in the state, the high court has repeatedly 
rejected such a focus.  The minimum contacts test assesses ―the relationship 
among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.‖  (Shaffer v. Heitner, supra, 
433 U.S. at p. 204.)  As the high court explicitly declared in Keeton, a ―plaintiff‘s 
residence in the forum State is not a separate requirement, and lack of residence 
will not defeat jurisdiction established on the basis of defendant‘s contacts.‖  
(Keeton, supra, 465 U.S. at p. 780; see also Walden v. Fiore, supra, 571 U.S. ___, 
___ [134 S.Ct. 1115, 1126] [―it is the defendant, not the plaintiff or third parties, 
who must create contacts with the forum State‖]; Helicopteros, supra, 466 U.S. at 
p. 412, fn. 5 [the plaintiffs‘ ―lack of residential or other contacts with Texas of 
itself does not defeat otherwise proper jurisdiction‖]; Calder v. Jones (1984) 465 
U.S. 783, 788 [the ―plaintiff‘s lack of ‗contacts‘ will not defeat otherwise proper 
jurisdiction‖]; Rush v. Savchuk (1980) 444 U.S. 320, 332 [―the plaintiff‘s contacts 
with the forum‖ cannot be ―decisive in determining whether the defendant‘s due 
process rights are violated‖]; see also Epic Communications, Inc. v. Richwave 
Technology, Inc. (2009) 179 Cal.App.4th 314, 336 [―We fail to see how the non-
California residency of plaintiff can make a ‗compelling case‘ ‖ with respect to 
any of the factors supporting personal jurisdiction].)  
Finally, BMS and our dissenting colleagues further allege that permitting the 
exercise of specific jurisdiction in California for the claims of nonresidents based 
on the company‘s nationwide sales and marketing would effectively subvert the 
holding of Daimler, supra, 571 U.S. ___ [134 S.Ct. 746], in which the court 
refused to base jurisdiction merely on nationwide sales.  But BMS‘s argument 
overstates the effect of our conclusion that specific jurisdiction is properly 
29 
exercised here.  Our decision does not render California an all-purpose forum for 
filing suit against BMS for any matter, regardless of whether the action is related 
to its forum activities.  Rather, as with any matter concerning specific jurisdiction, 
the minimum contacts test is applied on a case-by-case basis, focusing on the 
nature and quality of the defendant‘s activities in the state.  (Burger King, supra, 
471 U.S. at pp. 474-475.)  We simply hold under this specific set of circumstances 
that, for purposes of establishing the requisite minimum contacts, plaintiffs‘ claims 
concerning the allegedly defective design and marketing of Plavix bear a 
substantial nexus with or connection to BMS‘s extensive contacts with California 
as part of Plavix‘s nationwide marketing, its sales of Plavix in this state, and its 
maintenance of research and development facilities here so as to permit specific 
jurisdiction.   
4.  The reasonableness of specific jurisdiction 
As previously described, after a plaintiff meets the burden of showing that a 
defendant has purposefully established minimum contacts with the forum state, the 
burden then shifts to the defendant to show that the assertion of specific 
jurisdiction is unreasonable because it does not comport with ― ‗traditional notions 
of fair play and substantial justice.‘ ‖  (International Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. at 
p. 316.)  BMS does not argue that the assertion of jurisdiction in this case would 
be fundamentally unfair, but does advance several arguments it contends defeat 
the claim that their causes of action arose from or are related to its contacts with 
California.  Analytically, these arguments are more pertinent to consideration of 
whether the exercise of specific jurisdiction is reasonable, not whether the 
contested claims arise from or relate to the company‘s forum activities.  The 
questions raised by BMS — whether California has an interest in litigating the 
claims of nonresidents, whether BMS will unfairly bear a disproportionate burden 
30 
of defending itself against all nationwide claims in a single venue of relatively few 
resident plaintiffs, and whether California should expend its judicial resources on 
the claims of nonresident plaintiffs — are all circumstances relevant to the issue of 
whether BMS has established that the exercise of jurisdiction is unreasonable.  
They do not bear upon the issue of whether the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims arise 
from or are related to BMS‘s activities in the forum state.  Accordingly, we will 
examine these arguments using the criteria governing reasonableness. 
 In determining whether the defendant has established that the exercise of 
specific jurisdiction is unreasonable, the court ―must consider the burden on the 
defendant, the interests of the forum State, and the plaintiff‘s interest in obtaining 
relief.‖  (Asahi, supra, 480 U.S. at p. 113.)  Although it must also weigh in its 
determination ―the interstate judicial system‘s interest in obtaining the most 
efficient resolution of controversies[,] and the shared interest of the several States 
in furthering fundamental substantive social policies ‖ (World-Wide Volkswagen, 
supra, 444 U.S. at p. 292),  a requirement that may ―reflect[] an element of 
federalism and the character of state sovereignty vis-à-vis other States‖ (Insurance 
Corp. v. Compagnie des Bauxites (1982) 456 U.S. 694, 703, fn. 10), the due 
process clause ―is the only source of the personal jurisdiction requirement.‖  (Id. at 
p. 703, fn. 10.)  Accordingly, ―[t]he relationship among the defendant, the forum, 
and the litigation, rather than the mutually exclusive sovereignty of the States . . . 
[is] the central concern of the inquiry into personal jurisdiction.‖  (Shaffer v. 
Heitner, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 204.) 
a.  The burden on defendant in litigating the claims in California 
BMS complains that joining the claims of the nonresident plaintiffs to those 
of the comparatively smaller group of California plaintiffs would unfairly 
distribute the company‘s burden of defending this mass tort action by requiring it 
31 
to defend itself against all nationwide claims in a forum where only a minor 
portion of its sales occurred.  However, as the Court of Appeal noted, regardless of 
whether California exercises jurisdiction over nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims, BMS 
is already burdened by having to defend against the claims of 86 California 
plaintiffs.  Certainly, the addition of 592 nonresident plaintiffs is a significant 
added burden, but the alternative is to litigate the claims of these other 592 
nonresident plaintiffs in a scattershot manner in various other forums, in 
potentially up to 34 different states.4  Such an alternative would seem to be a far 
more burdensome distribution of BMS‘s resources in defending these cases than 
defending them in a single, focused forum. 
Pretrial preparation and discovery concerning plaintiffs‘ claims may pose 
challenges given the diversity of their states of residence, but, as the Court of 
Appeal recognized, our state‘s Civil Discovery Act provides for taking depositions 
outside California for use at trial.  (Code Civ. Proc., § 2026.010.)  Moreover, 
information and documents relevant to plaintiffs‘ requests for discovery will likely 
be located in New York or New Jersey, as will the individuals whom plaintiffs are 
likely to seek to depose, regardless of the venue in which the plaintiffs‘ claims are 
filed. 
Finally, BMS has provided no evidence to suggest that the cost of litigating 
plaintiffs‘ claims in San Francisco is excessive or unduly burdensome for BMS 
                                              
4 
Our dissenting colleagues note that nonresident plaintiffs presumably could 
file their claims in Delaware or perhaps New Jersey or New York, or in federal 
court, where they could be coordinated as part of multidistrict litigation, but 
nothing requires them to choose one of these forums rather than their home states.   
32 
compared to any other relevant forum or forums.5  BMS, therefore, fails to show 
that its defense of plaintiffs‘ claims in California places on it an undue burden. 
b.  California’s interest in providing a forum for plaintiffs in this 
case  
BMS further claims that California has no legitimate interest in adjudicating 
the claims of nonresidents because they have no connection to the state.  
Admittedly, the fact that the nonresident plaintiffs greatly outnumber the 
California plaintiffs does give us some pause.  But in ascertaining the 
reasonableness of exercising specific jurisdiction, no one factor, by itself, is 
determinative.  More important, there are identifiable interests our state holds in 
providing a forum for both the resident and nonresident plaintiffs. 
First, evidence of other injuries is ―admissible to prove a defective condition, 
knowledge, or the cause of an accident,‖ provided that the circumstances of the 
other injuries are similar and not too remote.  (Ault v. International Harvester 
(1974) 13 Cal.3d 113, 121-122; see also Elsworth v. Beech Aircraft Corp. (1984) 
37 Cal.3d 540, 555 [evidence of prior accidents involving similar airplane with 
identical single-engine stall-spin characteristics was admissible].)   To the extent 
that evidence of the injuries allegedly suffered by the nonresident plaintiffs may be 
relevant and admissible to prove that Plavix similarly injured the California 
plaintiffs, trying their cases together with those of nonresident plaintiffs could 
promote efficient adjudication of California residents‘ claims.  California, 
therefore, has a clear interest in providing a forum for this matter. 
                                              
5 
Of course, BMS is free to make such a showing on a motion asserting 
forum non conveniens.  (Stangvik v. Shiley Inc. (1991) 54 Cal.3d 744, 751.)  We 
merely hold that, for purposes of defeating specific jurisdiction, BMS fails to meet 
its burden. 
33 
This interest is further underscored by the substantial body of California law 
aimed at protecting consumers from the potential dangers posed by prescription 
medication, including warnings about serious side effects and prohibiting false and 
misleading labeling.  (See, e.g., Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 4070-4078.)  As this court 
has previously recognized, ―California has a strong interest in protecting its 
consumers by ensuring that foreign manufacturers comply with the state‘s safety 
standards.‖  (Asahi, supra, 39 Cal.3d at p. 53.)  It also bears reemphasis that there 
are no fewer than 250 BMS sales representatives in California.  Although at this 
early stage of the proceedings, the record contains very little evidence concerning 
the promotional and distribution activities of these sales representatives, California 
has a clear interest in regulating their conduct. 6  (Cf. Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17500 
[permitting claims by nonresidents who are deceived by representations 
―disseminated from‖ the State of California].) 
In addition, California also has an interest in regulating the conduct of 
BMS‘s codefendant, McKesson Corporation, which is headquartered in California, 
as a joint defendant with BMS.  As noted above, in Vons, we held that specific 
jurisdiction was proper over cross-defendants who entered into contracts in 
California that gave rise to the joint liability and the corresponding right to 
                                              
6 
Our dissenting colleagues contend that the record does not establish that 
BMS‘s sales representatives misled nonresident physicians concerning the safety 
and efficacy of Plavix or that McKesson was responsible for providing Plavix to 
any of the nonresident plaintiffs.  (Dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at pp. 11-12.)  
Certainly, the existence of such evidence would lend additional support to the 
question of whether the claims of the nonresident plaintiffs are not just related to 
but actually also arise out of BMS‘s contacts with California.  But our discussion 
here is merely focused on the reasonableness of asserting specific jurisdiction in 
this matter because our state has an interest in regulating conduct in the 
pharmaceutical industry that could pose a danger to public welfare, regardless of 
residency.   
34 
indemnification on which the cross-claims against them were based.  (See Vons, 
supra,14 Cal.4th at pp. 456-457.)   California‘s interest in adjudicating claims on 
which McKesson Corporation, a California resident, may be jointly liable with 
BMS, a nonresident defendant, is readily apparent.  Were BMS dismissed from 
nonresident plaintiffs‘ cases, California courts would be required to hear their 
claims against McKesson Corporation while the same plaintiffs litigated the same 
claims arising from the same facts and the same evidence against BMS in a forum 
potentially on the opposite side of the country.   
c.  Plaintiffs’ interest in a convenient and effective forum 
Nonresident plaintiffs have obviously purposefully availed themselves of the 
jurisdiction of courts in this state by choosing to file all of their claims here —
strong evidence that the forum is convenient to them.  Eighty-six of the 678 
plaintiffs reside in California; only Texas, with 92 plaintiffs, is home to more.   
Moreover, the current forum, San Francisco Superior Court, is equipped with 
a complex litigation department that is well suited to expeditiously handle such 
large cases.  BMS has not shown that this forum is inconvenient for plaintiffs. 
d.  Judicial economy and the shared interests of the interstate 
judicial system 
BMS argues that it would be a waste of California‘s judicial resources to 
provide a forum for the nonresident plaintiffs.  To be sure, a single court hearing 
the claims of hundreds of plaintiffs is a significant burden on that court.  But the 
overall savings of time and effort to the judicial system, both in California and 
interstate, far outweigh the burdens placed on the individual forum court.  The 
alternative that BMS proposes would result in the duplication of suits in in 
numerous state or federal jurisdictions at substantial costs to both the judicial 
system and to the parties, who would have to deal with disparate rulings on 
otherwise similar procedural and substantive issues. 
35 
For claims of mass injuries stemming from a single product or event, 
plaintiffs often resort to the mechanism of the class action, which promotes 
―efficiency and economy of litigation.‖ (Crown, Cork & Seal Co. v. Parker (1983) 
462 U.S. 345, 349.)  But, unlike class actions in which common questions of law, 
fact, and proximate cause predominate among members of the plaintiff class, 
―mass-tort actions for personal injury most often are not appropriate for class 
action certification.‖  (Jolly v. Eli Lilly & Co. (1988) 44 Cal.3d 1103, 1123.)  As 
this court has previously recognized, ―[t]he major elements in tort actions for 
personal injury — liability, causation, and damages — may vary widely from 
claim to claim, creating a wide disparity in claimants‘ damages and issues of 
defendant liability, proximate cause, liability of skilled intermediaries, 
comparative fault, informed consent, assumption of the risk and periods of 
limitation.‖  (Ibid.)  
Yet, because mass tort injuries may involve diverse injuries or harm not 
amenable to the efficiency and economy of a class action, they present special 
problems for the proper functioning of the courts and the fair, efficient, and speedy 
administration of justice.  Without coordination, ―those who win the race to the 
courthouse [and] bankrupt a defendant early in the litigation process‖ would 
recover but effectively shut out other potential plaintiffs from any recovery.  (In re 
Exxon Valdez (9th Cir. 2000) 229 F.3d 790, 795-796.)  Moreover, coordinated 
mass tort actions ―also avoid the possible unfairness of punishing a defendant over 
and over again for the same tortious conduct.‖  (Id. at p. 796.) 
It is also important to note that many of the resident plaintiffs allege that 
Plavix caused them to suffer heart attacks, strokes, cerebral bleeding, and 
gastrointestinal bleeding.  These are obviously severe medical conditions, and 
California has an interest in ensuring that litigation brought by its residents is 
resolved in a timely fashion.  By separating the nonresident plaintiffs from the 
36 
resident plaintiffs and forcing the nonresidents to sue in other states, it is fair to 
anticipate delays in the California proceedings that would be created by the 
litigation and appeals of discovery and factual conflicts in the various other 
forums.  In that event, the California plaintiffs‘ litigation could be stalled for a 
significant period without resolution.  Likewise, defendants would suffer the costs 
created by delay and uncertainty as to their potential liability, if any. 
Moreover, the same concerns of delay and efficiency apply equally to the 
interstate judicial system.  The other forums have an equally strong interest in the 
fair, efficient, and speedy administration of justice for both their resident plaintiffs 
and resident defendants.  The consolidation of plaintiffs‘ claims in a single forum 
is a mechanism for promoting those interests. 
Of course, the other potential forums also have a sovereign interest in 
seeing their laws applied to actions such as this one.  But for purposes of 
establishing the propriety of personal jurisdiction, the high court has stated, ―we 
do not think that such choice-of-law concerns should complicate or distort the 
jurisdictional inquiry.‖  (Keeton, supra, 465 U.S. at p. 778.)  Choice-of-law 
concerns might very well make a mass tort action unmanageable in certain 
circumstances, but that issue is not determinative at this stage of the proceedings. 
Accordingly, BMS has failed to carry its burden of showing that the 
exercise of personal jurisdiction over it in this matter is unreasonable. 
III.  CONCLUSION 
We conclude that BMS, despite its significant business and research activities 
in California, is not at home in our state for purposes of asserting general personal 
jurisdiction over it.  However, we conclude that in light of BMS‘s extensive 
contacts with California, encompassing extensive marketing and distribution of 
Plavix, hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from Plavix sales, a relationship 
with a California distributor, substantial research and development facilities, and 
37 
hundreds of California employees, courts may, consistent with the requirements of 
due process, exercise specific personal jurisdiction over nonresident plaintiffs‘ 
claims in this action, which arise from the same course of conduct that gave rise to 
California plaintiffs‘ claims:  BMS‘s development and nationwide marketing and 
distribution of Plavix.  BMS cannot establish unfairness:  Balancing the burdens 
imposed by this mass tort action, and given its complexity and potential impact on 
the judicial systems of numerous other jurisdictions, we conclude that the joint 
litigation of the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims with the claims of the California 
plaintiffs is not an unreasonable exercise of specific jurisdiction over defendant 
BMS.  
 
IV.  DISPOSITION 
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J. 
 
 
WE CONCUR:  
 
LIU, J. 
CUÉLLAR, J. 
KRUGER, J. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DISSENTING OPINION BY WERDEGAR, J. 
 
The court holds today that 592 plaintiffs residing in states other than 
California may sue Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS) in a California 
superior court for injuries resulting from these plaintiffs‘ use in their own states of 
BMS‘s prescription drug, Plavix.  Because BMS is not incorporated or based in 
California, its activities in the state are insufficient to establish general personal 
jurisdiction—jurisdiction for disputes unrelated to the company‘s California 
activities—over it in California courts.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 2.)  The majority, 
however, finds BMS‘s California contacts sufficient for specific, case-related 
personal jurisdiction, even though Plavix was not developed or manufactured in 
California and the nonresident plaintiffs did not obtain the drug through California 
physicians or from a California source, and despite the requirement for specific 
jurisdiction that there be a substantial connection between the plaintiff‘s claim and 
the defendant‘s forum activities.  (Id. at pp. 16–28; see Vons Companies, Inc. v. 
Seabest Foods, Inc. (1996) 14 Cal.4th 434, 452 (Vons).)   
I respectfully dissent from the court‘s decision on personal jurisdiction.  I 
agree the extent and type of contacts to support general jurisdiction are lacking.  
But I find in the record no evidence of contacts with California that bear a 
substantial connection to the claims of these nonresidents.  I therefore would hold 
specific jurisdiction has also not been established.   
2 
On a defendant‘s motion to quash service of process, the plaintiff asserting 
jurisdiction bears the burden of proving the extent of the defendant‘s forum 
contacts and their relationship to the plaintiff‘s claims.  (Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at 
p. 449; Gilmore Bank v. AsiaTrust New Zealand Ltd. (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 
1558, 1568.)  In this case, the nonresident plaintiffs (real parties in interest on 
BMS‘s petition for writ of mandate) have failed to show any substantial nexus, 
causal or otherwise, between their claims and BMS‘s activities in California. 
One can imagine a number of factual circumstances that might justify 
specific jurisdiction in a case like this.  Unfortunately, none of those circumstances 
have been established here: 
If real parties in interest had purchased Plavix while in California or from a 
California source, their claims could be considered substantially related to BMS‘s 
sale of Plavix in this state.  But the record contains no evidence connecting the 
Plavix taken by any of the nonresident plaintiffs to California. 
If real parties had been prescribed Plavix by a California doctor, their 
misrepresentation claims might be considered substantially related to BMS‘s 
marketing of Plavix to physicians here.  But there is no evidence of a California 
connection through real parties’ prescribing physicians. 
If the Plavix taken by real parties had been manufactured in California, one 
might well consider their defective product claims substantially connected to 
BMS‘s forum contacts.  But the record shows Plavix has never been manufactured 
in California.   
If the Plavix taken by real parties had been distributed to their respective 
states by codefendant McKesson Corporation, which is headquartered in San 
Francisco, it could be argued real parties‘ defective product claims were related to 
the distribution agreement between BMS and McKesson.  But real parties have 
3 
adduced no evidence to show how or by whom the Plavix they took was distributed 
to the pharmacies that dispensed it to them. 
If Plavix had been developed in California, real parties‘ defective product 
claims could be considered related to that California activity.  But the record 
shows Plavix was developed not in California but in New York and New Jersey, 
where BMS has, respectively, its headquarters and major operating facilities. 
If the labeling, packaging, or regulatory approval of Plavix had been 
performed in or directed from California, some of real parties‘ misrepresentation 
claims would arguably be related to those California activities.  But BMS did none 
of those things in California. 
Finally, if the ―nationwide marketing‖ campaign on which the majority relies 
(maj. opn., ante, at p. 27) had been created or directed from California, claims of 
misrepresentations in that marketing would have arisen from BMS‘s California 
contacts.  But according to the record, none of that marketing work was performed 
or directed by BMS’s California employees. 
In the absence of a concrete factual relationship between their claims and 
BMS‘s contacts with the forum state, on what do real parties, and the majority of 
this court, base their argument for specific jurisdiction over BMS in California 
courts?  In brief, their argument rests on similarity of claims and joinder with 
California plaintiffs.  First, real parties‘ claims arise from activities similar to 
those BMS conducted in California, because in marketing and selling Plavix 
throughout the United States, BMS sold the same allegedly defective product in 
California as in real parties‘ various states of residence and presumably made 
some of the same misrepresentations and omissions in those states and in 
California.  Second, real parties are joined in this action with plaintiffs who are 
California residents and who allege similar claims.  Neither of these factors, 
4 
however, creates a connection between real parties‘ claims of injury and BMS‘s 
California activities sufficient to satisfy due process. 
By statute, the personal jurisdiction of California courts extends to the limits 
set by the state and federal Constitutions.  (Code Civ. Proc., § 410.10.)  
Constitutional due process limits dictate that in the absence of general 
jurisdiction—which exists only if a corporation is incorporated in the forum state 
or conducts such intensive activities there as to make it ―at home‖ in that state 
(Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown (2011) 564 U.S. 915, 919 
(Goodyear))—personal jurisdiction over the corporation to adjudicate a particular 
claim (specific jurisdiction) is established only if the controversy ―is related to or 
‗arises out of‘ ‖ the company‘s activities in the forum state.  (Helicopteros 
Nacionales de Colombia v. Hall (1984) 466 U.S. 408, 414 (Helicopteros).) 
The majority‘s decision is not supported by specific jurisdiction decisions 
from the United States Supreme Court, this court, or the lower federal and state 
courts.  (See pt. I, post.)  And as I will discuss later (see pt. II, post), today‘s 
decision impairs important functions of reciprocity, predictability, and limited 
state sovereignty served by the relatedness requirement.  By weakening the 
relatedness requirement, the majority‘s decision threatens to subject companies to 
the jurisdiction of California courts to an extent unpredictable from their business 
activities in California, extending jurisdiction over claims of liability well beyond 
our state‘s legitimate regulatory interest. 
Just as important, minimizing the relatedness requirement undermines an 
essential distinction between specific and general jurisdiction.  In Daimler AG v. 
Bauman (2014) 571 U.S.___, ___ [187 L.Ed.2d 624, ___, 134 S.Ct. 746, 751], the 
United States Supreme Court made clear that general jurisdiction—jurisdiction to 
adjudicate controversies unrelated to the defendant‘s forum contacts—is not 
created merely by commercial contacts that are ―continuous and systematic‖ 
5 
(Helicopteros, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 416) but only by contacts so extensive as to 
render the defendant ― ‗at home‘ ‖ in the forum state.  (Daimler, supra, 187 
L.Ed.2d at p. 761.)  The majority applies that holding to conclude, correctly, that 
general jurisdiction is lacking here.  (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 13–16.)  But by 
reducing relatedness to mere similarity and joinder, the majority expands specific 
jurisdiction to the point that, for a large category of defendants, it becomes 
indistinguishable from general jurisdiction.  At least for consumer companies 
operating nationwide, with substantial sales in California, the majority creates the 
equivalent of general jurisdiction in California courts.  What the federal high court 
wrought in Daimler—a shift in the general jurisdiction standard from the 
―continuous and systematic‖ test of Helicopteros to a much tighter ―at home‖ 
limit—this court undoes today under the rubric of specific jurisdiction. 
I.  The Case Law Does Not Support Specific Jurisdiction in These 
Circumstances 
Specific jurisdiction over a defendant—jurisdiction to adjudicate a dispute 
connected to the defendant‘s contacts with the forum state—depends on the 
relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.  (Helicopteros, 
supra, 466 U.S. at p. 414.)  We have summarized the requirements for specific 
jurisdiction as threefold:  (1) the defendant has purposefully availed itself of forum 
benefits; (2) the controversy arises out of or is otherwise related to the defendant‘s 
forum contacts; and (3) the assertion of personal jurisdiction in the particular 
litigation is reasonable in light of the burdens and benefits of forum litigation.  
(Snowney v. Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. (2005) 35 Cal.4th 1054, 1062 
(Snowney).) 
BMS contests neither the first prong of this tripartite test, that the company 
has purposefully availed itself of forum benefits by its continuous course of 
substantial business activities in California, nor the third, that taking jurisdiction 
6 
would impose unreasonable burdens on the company.  (Snowney, supra, 35 
Cal.4th at p. 1070.)  The key issue here is therefore whether the claims of the real 
parties in interest (plaintiffs residing in states other than California) arise out of, or 
are otherwise related to, BMS‘s activities in California. 
A.  The Relatedness Requirement for Specific Jurisdiction 
The requirement that the litigation be related to the defendant‘s activities in 
or directed to the forum, by which it has purposefully availed itself of the benefits 
of doing business in the state, was first stated in the landmark decision of Internat. 
Shoe Co. v. Washington (1945) 326 U.S. 310 (International Shoe).  The high court 
first noted that jurisdiction is well established when a corporation‘s ―continuous 
and systematic‖ activities in the state ―give rise to the liabilities sued on.‖  (Id. at 
p. 317.)  Even when a corporation has engaged in only occasional activities in the 
state, due process may still be satisfied if those activities have created the 
obligations sued on:  ―[T]o the extent that a corporation exercises the privilege of 
conducting activities within a state, it enjoys the benefits and protection of the 
laws of that state.  The exercise of that privilege may give rise to obligations, and, 
so far as those obligations arise out of or are connected with the activities within 
the state, a procedure which requires the corporation to respond to a suit brought 
to enforce them can, in most instances, hardly be said to be undue.‖  (Id. at p. 
319.) 
In International Shoe itself, the relationship between the forum activities and 
the litigation was a straightforward one:  The defendant corporation had employed 
salesmen in the State of Washington, which required it contribute to the state‘s 
unemployment compensation fund; the litigation concerned an assessment for 
unpaid contributions.  (International Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. at pp. 312–313.)  Thus 
―the obligation which is here sued upon arose out of those very [forum] activities,‖ 
7 
making it reasonable for Washington ―to enforce the obligations which appellant 
has incurred there.‖  (Id. at p. 320.) 
The United States Supreme Court has not, since International Shoe, greatly 
elaborated on its understanding of the relatedness requirement.  The court in 
Helicopteros slightly reformulated the requirement:  jurisdiction may be 
appropriate if the controversy ―arise[s] out of or relate[s] to‖ the company‘s forum 
contacts.  (Helicopteros, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 414.)  But the high court did not 
explain or apply that standard in Helicopteros, and in Goodyear, supra, 564 U.S. 
at page 919, the court again used a different formulation, suggesting a narrower 
vision of relatedness:  ―Specific jurisdiction . . . depends on an ‗affiliatio[n] 
between the forum and the underlying controversy,‘ principally, activity or an 
occurrence that takes place in the forum State and is therefore subject to the 
State’s regulation.‖  (Italics added.)  The Goodyear court went on, very briefly, to 
explain why specific jurisdiction did not exist in the case before it, which involved 
the deaths of two North Carolina boys in an overseas bus accident:  ―Because the 
episode-in-suit, the bus accident, occurred in France, and the tire alleged to have 
caused the accident was manufactured and sold abroad, North Carolina courts 
lacked specific jurisdiction to adjudicate the controversy.‖  (Ibid.)  None of the 
injury-causing events having occurred in the forum state, the basis for specific 
jurisdiction was lacking. 
Of the post- International Shoe decisions in which the high court actually 
found a factual basis for specific jurisdiction, each featured a direct link between 
forum activities and the litigation.  (See Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz (1985) 
471 U.S. 462, 479–480 [specific jurisdiction in Florida courts proper where 
franchise dispute ―grew directly out of‖ contract formed between Florida 
franchisor and Michigan franchisee, whose breach ―caused foreseeable injuries to 
the corporation in Florida‖]; Calder v. Jones (1984) 465 U.S. 783, 789 [California 
8 
jurisdiction over writer and editor based in Florida proper for article distributed in 
California and defaming California resident, where the defendants‘ ―intentional, 
and allegedly tortious, actions were expressly aimed at California‖ and they knew 
article ―would have a potentially devastating impact‖ on California resident]; 
Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc. (1984) 465 U.S. 770, 776–777 (Keeton) [specific 
jurisdiction in New Hampshire courts proper over Ohio corporation where 
corporation‘s sale in New Hampshire of magazine defaming the plaintiff injured 
her reputation in that state]; McGee v. International Life Ins. Co. (1957) 355 U.S. 
220, 223 [specific jurisdiction in California courts proper where action was based 
on a life insurance contract delivered in California and on which the insured, a 
California resident at his death, had paid premiums from the state].)  Nothing in 
the high court‘s specific jurisdiction decisions suggests an abandonment or broad 
relaxation of the relatedness requirement. 
This court did, in Vons, adopt a relatively broad standard for relatedness.  
After canvassing formulations put forward by scholars and lower courts, we held 
the relationship between the defendant‘s forum contacts and the plaintiff‘s claims 
in litigation need not be one of proximate legal causation or even ―but for‖ factual 
causation, nor need the forum contacts be substantively relevant in the plaintiff‘s 
action.  (Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at pp. 460–475.)  Rather, the relationship required 
for specific jurisdiction exists if the claims bear a ―substantial nexus or 
connection‖ to the activities by which the defendant has purposefully availed itself 
of forum benefits.  (Id. at p. 456; accord, Snowney, supra, 35 Cal.4th at pp. 1067–
1068.)  The test is not a mechanical one, but a weighing process in which ―the 
greater the intensity of forum activity, the lesser the relationship required between 
the contact and the claim.‖  (Vons, supra, at p. 453; accord, Snowney, supra, at 
p. 1068.)  Specific jurisdiction in California courts is proper if ―because of the 
defendants‘ relationship with the forum, it is not unfair to require that they answer 
9 
in a California court for an alleged injury that is substantially connected to the 
defendants‘ forum contacts.‖  (Vons, supra, at p. 453.) 
Notwithstanding our relatively broad substantial connection standard, mere 
similarity of claims is an insufficient basis for specific jurisdiction.  The claims of 
real parties in interest, nonresidents injured by their use of Plavix they purchased 
and used in other states, in no sense arise from BMS‘s marketing and sales of 
Plavix in California, or from any of BMS‘s other activities in this state.  Nor is any 
other substantial connection apparent.   
BMS promoted and sold Plavix in this state, giving rise to the California 
plaintiffs‘ claims.  BMS also engaged in such promotion and sales in many other 
states, giving rise to claims by residents of those states.  As all the claims derive 
from similar conduct and allege similar injuries, the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims 
closely resemble those made by California residents.  But I can perceive no 
substantial nexus between the nonresidents‘ claims and BMS‘s California 
activities.  In each state, the company‘s activities are connected to claims by those 
who obtained Plavix or were injured in that state, but no relationship other than 
similarity runs between the claims made in different states.  As BMS argues, its 
California contacts fail to ―intersect‖ with the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims. 
Even a commentator ―sympathetic to an expanded role for specific 
jurisdiction‖ found the approach of the Court of Appeal in this case, which the 
majority in this court largely replicates, so overly broad as ―to reintroduce general 
jurisdiction by another name.‖  (Silberman, The End of Another Era: Reflections 
on Daimler and Its Implications for Judicial Jurisdiction in the United States 
(2015) 19 Lewis & Clark L.Rev. 675, 687 (hereafter Silberman).)  ―A more 
plausible specific jurisdiction forum might be the state where the drugs were 
manufactured or distributed to both the California and non-California plaintiffs; all 
plaintiffs‘ claims might be said to ‗arise from‘ such defective manufacture and 
10 
thereby provide an alternative single forum in which to have all the plaintiffs 
assert their claims.  In Bristol-Meyers [sic], no such connection to California can 
be established for the non-California plaintiffs.  The claims of the California and 
nonresident plaintiffs are merely parallel.‖  (Ibid., fn. omitted.) 
One form of substantial connection between a defendant‘s forum activities 
and the claims against it exists when the forum activities are legally relevant to 
establish the claims.  (Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 469.)  In that situation, the 
forum state‘s interest in regulating conduct occurring within its borders is 
implicated, as the plaintiff is seeking to impose liability, at least in part, for acts 
the defendant committed in the forum state.  (Id. at p. 472.)  But no such legal 
relevance connection is apparent here.  The nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims rest on 
allegations that BMS deceptively marketed and sold Plavix to them or their 
prescribing physicians, but, as noted earlier, the record is devoid of any 
suggestion, nor do real parties claim, the nonresident plaintiffs bought or were 
prescribed Plavix from a California source.  BMS‘s marketing and sales activities 
in California thus appear irrelevant to real parties‘ claims.  To quote BMS‘s brief, 
the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims ―would be exactly the same if BMS had never 
set foot in California, had never engaged in any commercial activity in California, 
had never sold any product here, and had engaged only non-California 
distributors.‖ 
In addition to its interest in regulating conduct within its borders, each state 
has an interest in providing a judicial forum for its injured residents, regardless of 
whether the conduct sued on occurred in the state.  (Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at 
pp. 472–473.)  ―[T]he state has a legitimate interest as sovereign in providing its 
residents with protection from injuries caused by nonresidents and with a forum in 
which to seek redress.  This assertion of sovereignty with respect to nonresident 
defendants is fair when those defendants have availed themselves of certain 
11 
benefits within the state and the claim is related to those contacts.‖  (Id. at p. 473.)  
But reference to the state‘s interest in providing a forum for its residents to seek 
legal redress is of no help to real parties in interest here, as they are not California 
residents.  California has no discernable sovereign interest in providing an Ohio or 
South Carolina resident a forum in which to seek redress for injuries in those states 
caused by conduct occurring outside California.  A mere resemblance between the 
nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims and those of California residents creates no 
sovereign interest in litigating those claims in a forum to which they have no 
substantial connection. 
The majority argues that taking jurisdiction over the nonresidents‘ claims 
furthers a California interest because evidence of their injuries may be admissible 
to help the California plaintiffs prove Plavix was a defective product.  (Maj. opn., 
ante, at p. 32.)  But admissibility of other injuries does not depend on joinder of 
the other injured person, as the cases the majority cites illustrate.  In neither Ault v. 
International Harvester (1974) 13 Cal.3d 113 nor Elsworth v. Beech Aircraft 
Corp. (1984) 37 Cal.3d 540, where evidence of prior similar injuries was held 
admissible, were those injured in the prior accidents joined as parties in the action. 
The majority also suggests that jurisdiction over the nonresidents‘ claims is 
proper because California law attempts to ―protect[] consumers from the potential 
dangers posed by prescription medication.‖  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 33.)  The 
statutes cited, however, regulate the dispensing of prescription drugs by California 
pharmacists (Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 4070–4078), while the claims at issue in this 
case are against BMS, a drug manufacturer.  Moreover, real parties in interest have 
neither alleged nor proven they were prescribed or furnished Plavix in California.  
How the cited California laws might apply to their claims is thus unclear, to say 
the least. 
12 
In the same passage, the majority implies that the activity of BMS‘s 
California sales representatives, whose representations California has an interest in 
regulating, might somehow be related to real parties‘ claims.  (Maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 33.)  In this instance as well, the majority ignores the complete absence of 
evidence showing any such relationship.  Real parties in interest, who have the 
burden of proving forum contacts related to their claims, have not even attempted 
to establish that sales representatives in California misled physicians in other 
states about Plavix‘s efficacy and safety.  While no doubt correct California has an 
interest in regulating dangerous conduct within our state (maj. opn, ante, p. 33, fn. 
6), the majority neglects to explain how that interest can be served by taking 
jurisdiction to adjudicate the claims of persons unaffected by any such conduct. 
Finally, the majority asserts that California‘s interest in regulating the 
conduct of codefendant McKesson Corporation (McKesson), a pharmaceutical 
distributor headquartered in California, justifies adjudicating real parties‘ claims 
against BMS in a California court.  (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 33–34.)  Of all the 
majority‘s red herrings, this is perhaps the ruddiest.  Why plaintiffs sued 
McKesson as well as BMS is not obvious—BMS suggests it was merely to avoid 
removal to federal court (see 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2))—but at no point have real 
parties argued McKesson bore any responsibility in providing them with Plavix.  
In their brief on the merits, real parties contended BMS‘s relationship with 
McKesson helped BMS make substantial profits ―within California,‖ and at oral 
argument their attorney acknowledged he had no evidence tying McKesson to the 
Plavix that allegedly injured real parties outside this state.  The notion of a 
connection between McKesson‘s conduct in California and the claims of real 
parties in interest, which arise from their acquisition and use of Plavix in other 
states, is purely a product of the majority‘s imagination. 
13 
Notwithstanding the majority‘s speculative suggestions, as far as the record 
shows real parties‘ claims arise solely from conduct in other states and do not 
implicate California‘s legitimate interest in regulating conduct within its borders. 
B.  Jurisdiction Over Liability Claims for Pharmaceutical Drugs 
Neither real parties in interest nor the majority cites any decision, state or 
federal, finding specific jurisdiction on facts similar to those here.  In fact, courts 
in both systems have rejected jurisdiction over drug defect claims made by 
plaintiffs who neither reside in nor were injured by conduct in the forum state.   
In Boaz v. Boyle & Co. (1995) 40 Cal.App.4th 700 (Boaz), a group of 
plaintiffs, mostly residents of New York and New Jersey, but including one 
California resident, sued several manufacturers of the drug DES for injuries 
allegedly resulting from their grandmothers‘ ingestion of the drug in New York.  
(Id. at p. 704.)  The appellate court affirmed the dismissal of the action against 
defendant Emons Industries, Inc., which was not subject to California‘s general 
jurisdiction, holding the basis for specific jurisdiction was also lacking as the 
defendant‘s activities in California were unrelated to the plaintiffs‘ injuries.  (Id. at 
p. 705.)  ―It is conceded that none of appellants‘ grandmothers, who ingested DES, 
did so in California.  Nor did any of them acquire the product as the result of any 
of Emons‘s activities related to California.  Indeed, as we have seen, none of them 
except [the single California resident] has any connection with this state.‖  (Id. at 
p. 718.)  Though the defendant had sold DES in California as it had in other states, 
that similarity of conduct did not subject it to personal jurisdiction for the purposes 
of adjudicating the out-of-state plaintiffs‘ claims, though, as the court noted, 
jurisdiction might be appropriate ―in a case arising out of ingestion in California or 
14 
by purchase or prescription in California of DES.‖  (Id. at p. 721.)1  As in the 
present case, none of those facts had been or could be established. 
Glater v. Eli Lilly & Co. (1st Cir. 1984) 744 F.2d 213, presented a similar 
fact pattern in an individual suit.  The plaintiff there sued a DES manufacturer in a 
federal court in New Hampshire for injuries she allegedly suffered from in utero 
exposure to the drug.  The plaintiff‘s mother took the drug in Massachusetts, 
where she lived.  (Id. at p. 214.)  That the manufacturer had marketed DES 
nationwide, including in New Hampshire, was insufficient to support specific 
jurisdiction:  Although Lilly marketed and sold DES nationwide, including in New 
Hampshire, ―Glater‘s cause of action did not arise from Lilly‘s New Hampshire 
activities; rather, her injuries were caused in Massachusetts by exposure in utero 
to DES which her mother purchased and consumed in Massachusetts.‖  (Id. at 
p. 216.)  Were the defendant‘s New Hampshire contacts deemed sufficiently 
related to the cause of action arising in Massachusetts, the court ―would be obliged 
to hold that any plaintiff in Glater‘s position—a nonresident injured out of state by 
a drug sold and consumed out of state—could bring suit in New Hampshire for 
DES injuries.‖  (Id. at p. 216, fn. 4.)  Such ―retributive jurisdiction‖ over claims 
                                              
1  
As to the California resident, the Boaz court reasoned jurisdiction was 
lacking because her grandmother had not taken DES in California and therefore 
―any DES-related affliction she suffers has nothing to do with any of Emons‘s 
activities related to California.‖  (Boaz, supra, 40 Cal.App.4th at p. 718.)  The 
court may have gone too far in this respect; California‘s interest in providing a 
forum for its residents to seek redress for actions having injurious effects in the 
state arguably justified specific jurisdiction over the California resident‘s claims.  
For the same reason, In re DES Cases (E.D.N.Y. 1992) 789 F.Supp. 552 can be 
distinguished as involving the claims of New York residents seeking a remedy for 
injuries occurring in New York; although the defendants challenging jurisdiction 
there did not market DES in New York, they bore legal responsibility for injuries 
there under the state‘s rule of market share liability.  (See id. at pp. 592–593.)  
15 
unconnected to the forum ―comports with neither logic nor fairness.‖  (Ibid.; 
accord, Seymour v. Parke, Davis & Company (1st Cir. 1970) 423 F.2d 584, 585, 
587 [suit in New Hampshire over drug taken and allegedly causing injury in 
Massachusetts ―did not arise [in New Hampshire], or as a result of anything which 
occurred there‖ and hence was an ―unconnected cause[] of action‖ that could only 
be justified by general jurisdiction, the basis for which was also lacking].) 
Also similar, though less extensively reasoned as to specific jurisdiction, is 
Ratliff v. Cooper Laboratories, Inc. (4th Cir. 1971) 444 F.2d 745.  That decision 
addressed two consolidated cases brought in a federal court in South Carolina, 
both by residents of other states who bought and consumed the allegedly harmful 
drugs (not named in the decision), against drug manufacturers that conducted 
business in South Carolina but were not incorporated or headquartered there and 
had not made the subject drugs there.  (Id. at p. 746.)  The court observed that the 
plaintiffs were not residents of South Carolina and their causes of action ―arose 
outside the forum and were unconnected with the defendant‘s activities in South 
Carolina.‖  (Id. at p. 747.)  Noting ―the lack of a ‗rational nexus‘ between the 
forum state and the relevant facts surrounding the claims presented‖ such as would 
support specific jurisdiction, the court moved on to general jurisdiction (for which 
it also found the forum contacts insufficient).  (Id. at p. 748.) 
In all these cases, the defendants had sold their pharmaceutical drugs in the 
forum state.  Indeed, in Boaz, California physicians accounted for 9 percent of the 
defendant‘s DES sales.  (Boaz, supra, 40 Cal.App.4th at p. 715.)2  Yet these 
                                              
2  
The majority (maj. opn., ante, at p. 25) notes that the defendant in Boaz, 
unlike BMS, did not employ salespeople or maintain offices in the state.  Yet 
through ―advertising in selected professional magazines and professional journals, 
and targeted mailings of samples and brochures to obstetricians and 
gynecologists,‖ all ―done on a national scale‖ (Boaz, supra, 40 Cal.App.4th at 
 
(footnote continued on next page) 
16 
courts— correctly, in my view— considered that forum activity to be unconnected 
to the plaintiffs‘ claims, which arose from use of the drugs in other states.  Not 
until today‘s decision has specific jurisdiction over a drug liability claim arising 
from the nonresident plaintiff‘s purchase, use, and injury outside the forum state 
been premised on the fact that the defendant also sold the drug in the forum state. 
C.  Specific Jurisdiction Decisions Relied on by Real Parties 
Turning from pharmaceutical liability to the broader case law, we see that 
none of the decisions real parties cite support specific jurisdiction based, as here,  
on the mere resemblance between the disputed claims and distinct claims brought 
by other plaintiffs that arose from the defendant‘s forum contacts.  Each of these 
cited cases involved a substantial connection between the defendant‘s activities in 
the forum state and the plaintiff‘s claims, not merely a connection between the 
forum activities and similar claims made by other plaintiffs. 
In Cornelison v. Chaney (1976) 16 Cal.3d 143 (Cornelison), a California 
resident sued for the wrongful death of her husband, who died in an automobile 
accident in Nevada.  The defendant, a Nebraska resident, was a trucker hauling 
goods in interstate commerce.  He made approximately 20 trips to California each 
year and was en route to this state with a shipment when his truck collided with 
the decedent‘s vehicle in Nevada, near the California border.  (Id. at pp. 146–147.) 
We concluded the plaintiff‘s cause of action did bear a substantial connection 
to the defendant‘s business activities in California:  ―As we have seen, defendant 
                                                                                                                                                              
 
(footnote continued from previous page) 
 
p. 715), the company sold a large amount of DES—the same product at issue in 
the disputed lawsuits—in California.  Like BMS, then, the defendant in Boaz 
―enjoyed sizeable revenues from the sales of its product here.‖  (Maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 26.)  Why the absence of other, dissimilar ties should serve to distinguish the 
case is unclear. 
17 
has been engaged in a continuous course of conduct that has brought him into the 
state almost twice a month for seven years as a trucker under a California license. 
The accident occurred not far from the California border, while defendant was 
bound for this state.  He was not only bringing goods into California for a local 
manufacturer, but he intended to receive merchandise here for delivery elsewhere.  
The accident arose out of the driving of the truck, the very activity which was the 
essential basis of defendant‘s contacts with this state.  These factors demonstrate, 
in our view, a substantial nexus between plaintiff‘s cause of action and 
defendant‘s activities in California.‖  (Cornelison, supra, 16 Cal.3d at p. 149.)  In 
further support, we observed that California had an interest in providing a forum 
for the litigation because the plaintiff was a California resident.  (Id. at p. 151.) 
Cornelison has in common with the present case that the plaintiff‘s injury 
arose directly from the defendant‘s conduct outside California.  But in Cornelison 
the defendant‘s out-of-state conduct, his allegedly negligent driving in Nevada, 
was directed (literally) toward California and resulted in injury to a California 
resident.  The connections to California that justified jurisdiction in Cornelison are 
missing from the claims of real parties in interest here. 
In Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th 434, we held specific jurisdiction proper over two 
restaurant franchisees based and operating in Washington State.  In multiparty 
litigation arising out of food poisoning incidents at their and other Jack-in-the-Box 
restaurants, the supplier of the allegedly tainted meat (Vons Companies, Inc. 
(Vons)) cross-complained against several franchisees, including the Washington 
franchisees, alleging their failure to cook the meat properly caused the poisoning.  
(Id. at pp. 440–441.)  Among other contacts with California, the franchisees had 
executed the franchise agreements, which specified methods of preparing Jack-in-
the-Box food products, in California, did regular business with the franchisor at its 
18 
headquarters in San Diego, and had officers attend training sessions offered by the 
franchisor in California.  (Id. at pp. 442–443.) 
We held Vons‘s claims against the franchisees bore a substantial relationship 
to their contacts with California for two reasons:  first, the franchise relationship—
formed in California, under which the franchisees bought meat Vons supplied to 
the franchisor—had drawn Vons and the franchisees into a relationship as alleged 
joint tortfeasors, with certain joint liabilities and rights of indemnification, rights 
upon which Vons‘ cross-complaint in part rested; second, the franchise 
relationship, by imposing uniform standards for cooking food, buying equipment, 
and training employees, was itself an alleged source of Vons‘ injuries, which Vons 
traced to the ― ‗systematically deficient‘ ‖ procedures required by the franchisor.  
(Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at pp. 456–457.) 
Real parties in interest rely on Vons for the propositions that for specific 
jurisdiction to be justified the defendant‘s forum activities need not be directed at 
the plaintiff or directly give rise to the plaintiff‘s claims.  (See Vons, supra, 14 
Cal.4th at pp. 453, 457.)  Both points are well taken.  Nonetheless, in Vons the 
connection between the forum activities and the claim was far more substantial 
than in the present case.  By their activities in California, including the formation 
of franchise relationships, the franchisees in Vons established the conditions that 
would ultimately allow the franchisor‘s meat supplier, Vons, to seek indemnity for 
their joint liability and redress for its own injuries.  The franchisees‘ forum 
activities were not directed at Vons, with which they had no direct relationship, 
and may not have proximately given rise to Vons‘s claims, but by establishing a 
franchise relationship pursuant to which the franchisees bought Vons‘s meat and 
prepared it according to methods set out in the franchise agreement, they set the 
stage for those claims, to say the least.  No such nexus is apparent here, where 
19 
BMS‘s marketing and sales of Plavix in California did nothing to establish the 
circumstances under which it allegedly injured plaintiffs in other states. 
Finally as to California cases, real parties in interest cite Snowney, supra, 35 
Cal.4th 1054, in which we held a California resident could sue a group of Nevada 
hotels in a California court for the hotels‘ failure to provide notice that they would 
impose an energy surcharge on their room prices.  (Id. at p. 1059.)  In a relatively 
brief discussion of the relatedness issue (the bulk of our analysis concerned the 
question of purposeful availment), we held the plaintiff‘s claims had a substantial 
connection to the defendants‘ California forum activities because the plaintiff‘s 
false advertising and unfair competition claims were based on the hotels‘ alleged 
omissions in their California advertising and in the reservation process.  (Id. at 
p. 1068.)  ―Because the harm alleged by plaintiff relates directly to the content of 
defendants‘ promotional activities in California, an inherent relationship between 
plaintiff‘s claims and defendants‘ contacts with California exists.‖  (Id. at p. 1069.) 
Real parties rely on Snowney for its adherence to the substantial connection 
test articulated in Vons and for its reiteration of Vons‘s statements that the required 
intensity of forum contacts and connection of the claim to those contacts are 
inversely related (the greater the contacts, the less of a relationship need be shown) 
and that the forum contacts need not be directed at the plaintiff or give rise directly 
to the plaintiff‘s claim.  (See Snowney, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 1068.)  I find those 
principles unavailing in this case.  However intense the defendant‘s activities in 
California, they must still bear a substantial relationship to the plaintiff‘s claims, 
and neither Snowney nor any of the other decisions real parties cite suggests that a 
mere resemblance between the plaintiff‘s claims and those made by other 
plaintiffs that are based on the defendant‘s California contacts establishes a 
substantial connection.   
20 
Cornelison, Vons and Snowney establish that we do not demand the 
relationship between the defendant‘s California contacts and the plaintiff‘s claims 
be causal or direct.  They do not, however, support specific jurisdiction on the 
tenuous basis of a resemblance to other claims by other plaintiffs.  (See 
Greenwell v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co. (2015) 233 Cal.App.4th 783, 801 [Vons and 
Snowney require a substantial connection between the plaintiff‘s claims and the 
defendant‘s forum contacts; test is not satisfied whenever there is ―any 
relationship at all‖].) 
In Keeton, supra, 465 U.S. 770, the United States Supreme Court upheld the 
assertion of specific jurisdiction in New Hampshire to adjudicate the libel claims 
of a New York resident against an Ohio corporation with its principal place of 
business in California.  (Id. at pp. 772–774.)  The high court found the defendant‘s 
regular circulation of magazines in New Hampshire was sufficient to support the 
state‘s jurisdiction over a libel claim based on the magazine‘s contents, even 
though the plaintiff could, under the ― ‗single publication rule‘ ‖ followed in New 
Hampshire, recover damages from publication of the magazine throughout the 
United States.  (Id. at pp. 773–774.)  The court emphasized that the plaintiff was 
suing, in part, for damages she suffered in New Hampshire, ―[a]nd it is beyond 
dispute that New Hampshire has a significant interest in redressing injuries that 
actually occur within the State.‖  (Id. at p. 776.)   
Unlike the plaintiff in Keeton, real parties in interest suffered no injury in 
California or from BMS‘s conduct in California.  They nonetheless argue Keeton 
is analogous because the plaintiff there sought recovery, in large part, for injuries 
incurred outside the forum state.  For two reasons, however, the analogy does not 
hold. 
First, the single publication rule at work in Keeton was a state law rule 
governing the measure of damages for defamation, not one governing the joinder 
21 
of claims or claimants.  The propriety of that state law damages rule was not itself 
a jurisdictional issue; rather, the question was whether personal jurisdiction in 
New Hampshire violated due process given the state‘s single publication rule (and 
its unusually long statute of limitations).  (Keeton, supra, 465 U.S. at pp. 773–
774.)  In contrast, BMS‘s motion to quash service of summons as to the claims of 
the nonresident plaintiffs directly presents the jurisdictional issue as to those 
plaintiffs.  We ask whether the superior court may take jurisdiction over defendant 
to adjudicate those claims, and are not required to decide whether the entire suit, 
including the claims of the California residents, would be subject to dismissal for 
lack of jurisdiction if the nonresidents‘ claims were included in it. 
Second, New Hampshire had an interest in adjudicating the out-of-state 
damages that does not translate to the factual context of this case.  (See Keeton, 
supra, 465 U.S. at p. 777.)  To prevent the extraordinary burden on courts and 
litigants of having a defamation plaintiff sue separately in 50 states—and to allow 
effective application of a statute of limitations for publications that continue or 
recur over lengthy periods—most states have adopted the single publication rule, 
allowing only a single action per publication, but one in which all damages from 
the publication may be recovered.  (See Civ. Code, § 3425.3 [Cal. Uniform Single 
Publication Act]; Christoff v. Nestlé USA, Inc. (2009) 47 Cal.4th 468, 477–479; 
see also Keeton, supra, at p. 778.)   
On the facts of this case, there is no analogous state interest of similar force 
that would justify California courts adjudicating the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims.  
This is not a case in which the individual California plaintiffs would be stymied by 
procedural obstacles or restrictive damages rules were the nonresidents excluded 
from the action.  Plaintiffs allege they suffered ―severe physical, economic and 
emotional injuries‖ from their use of Plavix, including bleeding ulcers, 
gastrointestinal bleeding, cerebral bleeding, heart attack and stroke.  Even if some 
22 
of the California plaintiffs might have individual claims too small to justify suit, 
the consolidation of scores of such claims from within California would remedy 
that insufficiency without the addition of hundreds of nonresidents‘ claims.  
California can thus provide an effective forum for its residents to seek redress 
without joining those claims to similar claims by nonresidents.  Nor does this case 
raise the specter of a continually restarting statute of limitations that would subject 
defendants like BMS to the harassment of unending suits for the same conduct 
(see Christoff v. Nestlé USA, Inc., supra, 47 Cal.4th at p. 478), as was the case 
with the defamation suit in Keeton. 
The majority argues jurisdiction over nonresidents‘ claims is justified by the 
efficiencies of litigating all claims arising from a ―mass tort‖ in a single forum and 
by the existence of a complex litigation division in San Francisco Superior Court 
―well suited to expeditiously handle such large cases.‖  (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 35, 
34.)  If these 678 plaintiffs were all the injured Plavix users in the United States, 
and the only options for the nonresident plaintiffs were participation in this action 
or individual actions in their home states, then joint proceedings in California 
would likely be the most efficient procedure, though the extent of that efficiency 
would depend on how choice of law questions are resolved, among other factors.  
(See Silberman, supra, 19 Lewis & Clark L.Rev. at p. 687 [―As for the efficiency 
arguments relied on by the California appeals court, only the issue of the defective 
quality of the drug is common to all the claims.‖].)   
But these plaintiffs do not constitute the entire universe of those claiming 
injury from Plavix—far from it—and real parties‘ options are not limited to 
joining this action or each bringing separate actions in their respective states.  In 
addition to consolidated multidistrict federal litigation in the District of New 
23 
Jersey, individual, mass or representative actions have been brought in several 
other states.3  Whether or not real parties‘ claims are heard together with those of 
the California plaintiffs, inefficiency and the potential for conflicting rulings will 
exist so long as actions are simultaneously pending in several state and federal 
courts.  (See generally Miller, Overlapping Class Actions (1996) 71 N.Y.U. 
L.Rev. 514, 520–525.)   
No mechanism exists for centralizing nationwide litigation in a state court; 
there is no means by which pending actions in Illinois courts, for example, can be 
transferred to a California court.  The San Francisco Superior Court, no matter 
how well equipped for trying complex cases, cannot adjudicate the entire dispute 
between injured Plavix users and BMS.  If efficiency is the goal, federal litigation 
                                              
3  
See In re Plavix Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability 
Litigation (No. II) (U.S. Jud. Panel Multidist. Litig. 2013) 923 F.Supp.2d 1376, 
1379–1381 (centralizing in District of New Jersey litigation arising in that state 
and in Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, New York, and Pennsylvania, and potentially 
centralizing additional actions from California and Mississippi); Mills v. Bristol-
Myers Squibb Co. (D.Ariz., Aug. 12, 2011, No. CV 11-968-PHX-FJM) 2011 WL 
3566131, at *1 (individual action); Hawaii ex rel. Louie v. Bristol-Myers Squibb 
Co. (D.Hawaii, Aug. 5, 2014, No. CIV. 14-00180 HG-RLP) 2014 WL 3865213, at 
*2 (parens patriae action brought by the Attorney General of Hawaii remanded to 
state court); Davidson v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (S.D.Ill., Apr. 13, 2012, No. 
CIV. 12-58-GPM) 2012 WL 1253165, at *5 (action by 83 plaintiffs remanded to 
state court); Boyer v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (S.D.Ill., Apr. 13, 2012, No. CIV. 
12-61-GPM) 2012 WL 1253177, at *5 (same, as to action by 71 plaintiffs); Anglin 
v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (S.D.Ill., Apr. 13, 2012, No. CIV. 12-60-GPM) 2012 
WL 1268143, at *5 (same, as to action by 67 plaintiffs); Tolliver v. Bristol-Myers 
Squibb Co. (N.D.Ohio, July 30, 2012, No. 1:12 CV 00754) 2012 WL 3074538, at 
*1 (individual action); Employer Teamsters-Local Nos. 175/505 Health and 
Welfare Trust Fund v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (S.D.W. Va. 2013) 969 
F.Supp.2d 463, 466 (action by third party payors alleging misleading and false 
marketing of Plavix). 
24 
centralized through the multidistrict procedure offers a more promising path than a 
series of uncoordinated state and federal court actions. 
Keeton, in which jurisdiction was found proper despite a state law rule 
allowing damages for out-of-state injuries, thus fails to support real parties‘ 
contention that jurisdiction over litigation brought by nonresident plaintiffs whose 
claims arose in other states may be obtained by joining their cases to similar ones 
brought by California plaintiffs.  Such jurisdiction by joinder, moreover, would 
run counter to the holding of Hanson v. Denckla (1958) 357 U.S. 235 (Hanson). 
In Hanson, the high court held a Florida court considering the validity of a 
trust created in Delaware did not have personal jurisdiction over the Delaware 
trustee, who had performed no relevant acts in Florida (357 U.S. at p. 252),4 even 
though other parties to the dispute resided in Florida and could be brought before 
the Florida court:  ―It is urged that because the settlor and most of the appointees 
and beneficiaries were domiciled in Florida the courts of that State should be able 
to exercise personal jurisdiction over the nonresident trustees.  This is a non 
sequitur.  With personal jurisdiction over the executor, legatees, and appointees, 
there is nothing in federal law to prevent Florida from adjudicating concerning the 
respective rights and liabilities of those parties.  But Florida has not chosen to do 
                                              
4  
The majority‘s account of Hanson as resting solely on the purposeful 
availment prong of the specific jurisdiction test (maj. opn., ante, at p. 26, fn. 3) is 
incomplete.  The trust settlor in Hanson had moved to Florida after establishing 
the trust; the trustee then paid the settlor trust income in that state and received 
from her directions for trust administration, including the execution of two powers 
of appointment.  (Hanson, supra, 357 U.S. at p. 252 & fn. 24.)  But because the 
litigation concerned the validity of the trust agreement itself (id. at p. 253), the 
cause of action was ―not one that arises out of an act done or transaction 
consummated in the forum State.‖  (Id. at p. 251.)  Hanson‘s holding was thus 
based on the lack of a relationship between the litigation and the defendant‘s 
forum contacts as well as on the paucity of those contacts. 
25 
so.  As we understand its law, the trustee is an indispensable party over whom the 
court must acquire jurisdiction before it is empowered to enter judgment in a 
proceeding affecting the validity of a trust.   It does not acquire that jurisdiction by 
being the ‗center of gravity‘ of the controversy, or the most convenient location 
for litigation.‖  (Id. at p. 254, fn. omitted.) 
It is likewise a non sequitur to argue that because many Californians have 
sued BMS for injuries allegedly caused by their use of Plavix, and the superior 
court‘s jurisdiction to address their claims is not disputed, the claims of 
nonresidents injured in other states should also be adjudicated here.  California 
might or might not be an especially convenient and efficient forum for nationwide 
Plavix litigation, but joinder of California plaintiffs cannot confer personal 
jurisdiction over BMS to adjudicate claims that do not arise out of, and are not 
otherwise related to, BMS‘s business activities in California. 
The majority posits two bases for deeming BMS‘s California activities 
related to the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims.  First, despite a silent factual record 
on this point, the majority infers that BMS employed the ―same . . . assertedly 
misleading marketing and promotion‖ in California as in the states where real 
parties resided and were allegedly injured.5  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 23.)  I have 
shown above that neither the case law nor an analysis of forum state interests 
supports basing specific jurisdiction on a similarity between activities in the forum 
state and those outside the forum.  Characterizing BMS‘s multistate marketing 
activities as ―coordinated‖ (maj. opn., ante, at p. 24) adds nothing to the 
                                              
5  
Despite relying on BMS‘s nationwide marketing of Plavix as a basis for 
jurisdiction, and despite bearing the burden of proof on contacts and relatedness, 
real parties in interest introduced no evidence of particular marketing materials or 
broadcasts deployed in any state. 
26 
jurisdictional argument given that, as the majority concedes, the record shows 
BMS‘s marketing campaign for Plavix was coordinated from New York and New 
Jersey rather than from California.  The majority‘s supposition that California 
courts have personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant to adjudicate a 
claim arising from deceptive advertising in, say, Maryland because the defendant 
used a common marketing strategy in California, Maryland and other states is 
without rational foundation. 
Nor does calling BMS‘s nationwide marketing of Plavix a ―course of 
conduct‖ (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 24, 25, 36) advance the majority‘s cause.  As 
already noted (fn. 5, ante), real parties introduced no evidence of marketing 
materials or broadcasts used in any state.  Other than that some degree of 
commonality existed, which BMS conceded, the extent of marketing overlap 
among the states is simply unknown.  Certainly, this record provides no basis for 
assuming that real parties and the California plaintiffs were all injured by a single 
television broadcast made simultaneously in every media market or a single print 
advertisement published simultaneous in newspapers and magazines throughout 
the nation.  This is not a case, that is to say, of a single act injuring plaintiffs in 
multiple states at one blow, where the argument for common jurisdiction might be 
stronger.  All that appears is that Plavix was marketed nationwide and that BMS 
may have used many of the same materials—none of them generated in 
California—in various states.  Such similarity of causes is not sufficient to give 
our courts jurisdiction over all claims, wherever they arise, based on 
misrepresentations or omissions in a company‘s marketing materials. 
Second, the majority notes that BMS maintains some research facilities in 
California, although the majority concedes Plavix was not developed in those 
27 
facilities.6  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 24.)  This second ground of relatedness is both 
illogical and startling in its potential breadth.  Because BMS has performed 
research on other drugs in California, claims of injury from Plavix may, according 
to the majority, be adjudicated in this state.  Will we in the next case decide that a 
company may be sued in California for dismissing an employee in Florida because 
on another occasion it fired a different employee in California, or that an Illinois 
resident can sue his automobile insurer here for bad faith because the defendant 
sells health care policies in the California market?  The majority points to no 
substantial connection between Plavix claims arising in other states and research 
on unspecified other products in this state. 
II.  The Relatedness Requirement Serves Important Functions and 
Should Not Be Minimized 
As shown in part I, ante, the case law on specific jurisdiction does not 
support a California court taking jurisdiction over nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims, 
arising from their use of Plavix in other states.  BMS marketed and sold Plavix to 
other plaintiffs within California, but those forum activities are not substantially 
related to the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims.  In the absence, however, of any 
United States Supreme Court decisions closely on point, stare decisis does not 
prevent the majority from giving the relatedness requirement scant consideration, 
while relying on its theory that the asserted benefits of consolidating multistate 
claims in California outweigh the burdens for BMS of defending real parties‘ 
                                              
6  
This is not a matter of the absence of evidence.  In support of its motion to 
quash service, a BMS executive submitted a declaration stating that ―none of the 
work to develop Plavix took place in California,‖ and that all development, 
manufacture, labeling, and marketing of Plavix was performed or directed from 
New York or New Jersey; none was accomplished or directed by California 
employees.   
28 
claims here together with those of the California plaintiffs.  (Maj. opn., ante, at 
pp. 29–35.)  Nevertheless, this approach is, in my view, a serious mistake.  By 
essentially ignoring relatedness and merely satisfying itself that defendant is not 
being haled into an inconvenient forum where it has no significant contacts, the 
majority blurs the distinction between general and specific jurisdiction and impairs 
the values of reciprocity, predictability, and interstate federalism served by due 
process limits on personal jurisdiction. 
Reciprocity, in this context, refers to the idea that the litigation to which a 
defendant is exposed in a particular forum should bear some relationship to the 
benefits the company has sought by doing business in the state.  (See Moore, The 
Relatedness Problem in Specific Jurisdiction (2001) 37 Idaho L.Rev. 583, 599 
[―The party has garnered the benefits offered by the government in which the 
court sits.  These benefits include the laws, the administrative framework and their 
restraining effects.  In return, the party concedes to that government a quantum of 
power to govern his conduct, a power which he himself holds in a natural 
autonomous state.‖].)  Such reciprocity is most clearly maintained by the state 
taking jurisdiction over disputes arising directly from the defendant‘s activities in 
the state.  As the high court said in International Shoe, where ―[t]he obligation 
which is . . . sued upon arose out of those very activities,‖ it will generally be 
―reasonable and just . . . to permit the state to enforce the obligations which 
appellant has incurred there.‖  (International Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. at p. 320.)   
More broadly, enforcing a meaningful relatedness requirement ensures some 
degree of reciprocity; because the forum‘s assertion of jurisdiction cannot 
encompass disputes that have no substantial connection with the defendant‘s 
forum activities, the liabilities to which the defendant is exposed in the forum will 
tend to bear a relationship to the benefits it has sought in doing business there.  
―Relationship helps test whether the benefits and burdens are similar.  When a suit 
29 
concerns the activities from which the corporation received in-state benefits, there 
is some similarity in the burden imposed by the assertion of jurisdiction. . . .  
Relatedness may be a rough measure, but it placed a logical limit on the burdens 
arising from in-state activities.‖  (Andrews, The Personal Jurisdiction Problem 
Overlooked in the National Debate About “Class Action Fairness” (2005) 58 
SMU L.Rev. 1313, 1345–1346 (hereafter Andrews).) 
Relatedness bears on predictability in much the same way.  ―In order for a 
business to properly structure its behavior—set consumer costs, procure insurance, 
or sever its relationship with a particular state—it must not only know that a 
contact has been made in a particular state (an aim protected through the 
purposeful availment standard), but it also must have some minimal appreciation 
of the effect of that contact.  The relationship standard helps give this knowledge. 
If a business entity chooses to enter a state on a minimal level, it knows that under 
the relationship standard, its potential for suit will be limited to suits concerning 
the activities that it initiates in the state.‖  (Andrews, supra, 58 SMU L.Rev. at 
p. 1346; see World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson (1980) 444 U.S. 286, 297 
(World-Wide Volkswagen) [observing that when a corporation sells its products in 
a state, ―it has clear notice that it is subject to suit there,‖ and jurisdiction over a 
suit would not be unreasonable ―if its allegedly defective merchandise has there 
been the source of injury to its owner or to others.‖].)  
Finally, limiting specific jurisdiction to litigation that is substantially 
connected to the defendant‘s forum activities prevents states from straying beyond 
their legitimate regulatory spheres.  Appropriately limited, specific jurisdiction 
―acts to ensure that the States, through their courts, do not reach out beyond the 
limits imposed on them by their status as coequal sovereigns in a federal system.‖  
(World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, 444 U.S. at p. 292.)  As the high court explained 
in Hanson, the growth in interstate commerce and the easing of communications 
30 
and transportation may have tempered, but they have not eliminated, the role that 
territorial limits on state regulation play under due process.  Due process 
restrictions on personal jurisdiction ―are more than a guarantee of immunity from 
inconvenient or distant litigation.  They are a consequence of territorial limitations 
on the power of the respective States.‖  (Hanson, supra, 357 U.S. at p. 251.)   
Expanding on this point in World-Wide Volkswagen, the court explained that 
while the Constitution‘s Framers foresaw a nation of economically interdependent 
states, they ―also intended that the States retain many essential attributes of 
sovereignty, including, in particular, the sovereign power to try causes in their 
courts.  The sovereignty of each State, in turn, implied a limitation on the 
sovereignty of all of its sister States—a limitation express or implicit in both the 
original scheme of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment.‖  (World-
Wide Volkswagen, supra, 444 U.S. at p. 293.)  Thus even in the modern era due 
process limits on personal jurisdiction retain a territorial aspect:  ―Even if the 
defendant would suffer minimal or no inconvenience from being forced to litigate 
before the tribunals of another State; even if the forum State has a strong interest 
in applying its law to the controversy; even if the forum State is the most 
convenient location for litigation, the Due Process Clause, acting as an instrument 
of interstate federalism, may sometimes act to divest the State of its power to 
render a valid judgment.‖  (Id. at p. 294; accord, J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. 
Nicastro (2011) 564 U.S. 873, 879 (plur. opn. of Kennedy, J.) [―The Due Process 
Clause protects an individual‘s right to be deprived of life, liberty, or property 
only by the exercise of lawful power. . . .  This is no less true with respect to the 
power of a sovereign to resolve disputes through judicial process than with respect 
31 
to the power of a sovereign to prescribe rules of conduct for those within its 
sphere.‖].)7 
The relatedness requirement for specific jurisdiction plays a key role in 
implementing these interstate federalism limits.  By conducting business within a 
state or directing its efforts at the state, a company brings its activities within the 
state‘s core regulatory concerns.  Litigation that arises from those activities falls 
squarely within the state‘s sovereign power to adjudicate.  In contrast, litigation 
arising outside the state is unlikely to be a fit subject for state court adjudication 
except to the extent it involves state residents.  ―A state has sovereignty with 
regard to activity conducted within its borders, and it thus has power over claims 
arising from that activity. . . .  A state seemingly has no sovereignty over activity 
that neither involves its citizens nor occurs within its borders.‖  (Andrews, supra, 
58 SMU L.Rev. at p. 1347.)  Relatedness thus ―helps limit the reach of states so 
that they do not exceed legitimate state interests.‖  (Id. at p. 1348.)  As this court 
remarked (in a choice of law discussion, but with equal applicability to 
jurisdiction), our state‘s legitimate regulatory interest does not ordinarily extend to 
measures aimed at ―alter[ing] a defendant‘s conduct in another state vis-à-vis 
another state‘s residents.‖  (Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, Inc. (2006) 39 
Cal.4th 95, 104, italics omitted.) 
                                              
7  
In Insurance Corp. of Ireland, Ltd. v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee 
(1982) 456 U.S. 694, 703, footnote 10, the high court noted that concern for 
federalism is not ―an independent restriction on the sovereign power of the court,‖ 
but rather ―a function of the individual liberty interest preserved by the Due 
Process Clause,‖ waivable by the party.  Though not an independent, unwaivable 
restriction on jurisdiction, interstate federalism remains an important consideration 
in determining how the due process limits on jurisdiction should be applied.  ―The 
defendant has a due process right to have states act only within the limits of their 
sovereignty.‖  (Andrews, supra, 58 SMU L.Rev. at p. 1347.) 
32 
Basing specific jurisdiction on mere similarity between a corporation‘s forum 
activities and those outside the state, as the majority does in this case, defeats the 
relatedness requirement‘s functions of reciprocity, predictability, and interstate 
federalism.  If BMS must answer in a California court for Plavix claims arising 
across the country simply because some Californians have made similar claims, 
the link between the benefits BMS has sought by doing that business in the state 
and the liabilities to which it is exposed here has been severed.  In the same way, 
predictability has been severely impaired, as the company‘s potential liabilities 
cannot be forecast from its state activities.  And interstate federalism is perhaps 
most directly impaired; by taking jurisdiction to adjudicate a dispute arising only 
from BMS‘s actions in, for example, Texas, and allegedly resulting in injuries 
only to a Texan, the California courts infringe directly on Texas‘s sovereign 
prerogative to determine what liabilities BMS should bear for actions in its borders 
and injuring its residents.  ―[T]he forum state arguably exceeds its sovereignty 
when it asserts jurisdiction over claims that are merely similar to activities within 
its borders, as opposed to causally connected to the forum conduct.‖  (Andrews, 
supra, 58 SMU L.Rev. at pp. 1354–1355.) 
For decades, commentators have rejected similarity as an adequate criterion 
of connection or relatedness, recognizing that its excessive breadth would create 
jurisdiction in every state for every breach by a national corporation, wherever it 
occurred.  ―Thus the similarity test would apparently have to allow jurisdiction in 
any State in the country where the defendant has engaged in similar activities.‖  
(Brilmayer, How Contacts Count: Due Process Limitations on State Court 
Jurisdiction (1980) Sup.Ct.Rev. 77, 84; accord, Rhodes & Robertson, Toward a 
New Equilibrium in Personal Jurisdiction (2014) 48 U.C. Davis L.Rev. 207, 242 
[allowing specific jurisdiction ―in every forum in which the defendant conducts 
continuous and systematic forum activities that are sufficiently similar to the 
33 
occurrence in dispute . . . would give the plaintiff the choice of essentially every 
state for proceeding against a national corporation‖].)  Today, the majority, by 
holding the presence of California plaintiffs with claims similar to those of real 
parties in interest constitutes a substantial connection between real parties‘ claims 
and BMS‘s California activities, effectively sanctions California courts taking 
jurisdiction over actions by plaintiffs throughout the nation alleging injuries from 
any nationwide business activity.   
As California holds a substantial portion of the United States population, any 
company selling a product or service nationwide, regardless of where it is 
incorporated or headquartered, is likely to do a substantial part of its business in 
California.  Under the majority‘s theory of specific jurisdiction, California 
provides a forum for plaintiffs from any number of states to join with California 
plaintiffs seeking redress for injuries from virtually any course of business conduct 
a defendant has pursued on a nationwide basis, without any showing of a 
relationship between the defendant‘s conduct in California and the nonresident 
plaintiffs‘ claims.  The majority thus sanctions our state to regularly adjudicate 
disputes arising purely from conduct in other states, brought by nonresidents who 
suffered no injury here, against companies who are not at home here but simply do 
business in the state. 
Such an aggressive assertion of personal jurisdiction is inconsistent with the 
limits set by due process.  Although those limits are more flexible and less strictly 
territorial than in the past, the high court has explained that they still act to keep 
any one state from encroaching on the others:  ―[W]e have never accepted the 
proposition that state lines are irrelevant for jurisdictional purposes, nor could we, 
and remain faithful to the principles of interstate federalism embodied in the 
Constitution.‖  (World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, 444 U.S. at p. 293.)  That BMS 
marketed and sold Plavix throughout the United States, presumably using much of 
34 
the same advertising in many markets, does not give California authority, under 
our federal system, to assert jurisdiction over claims arising throughout the nation.  
Speaking of the limits to jurisdiction set by interstate federalism, the court in 
Boaz—also involving a pharmaceutical drug marketed throughout the nation—
observed:  ―We have no warrant to jettison these principles in favor of an approach 
which recognizes no defined limits to the assertion of jurisdiction against any 
defendant whose national marketing somehow affects commerce in the forum 
state.‖  (Boaz, supra, 40 Cal.App.4th at p. 721.) 
Assessing the fairness of specific jurisdiction ― ‗in the context of our federal 
system of government‘ ‖ (World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, 444 U.S. at pp. 293–
294), we should be restrained here by the absence of any discernable state interest 
in adjudicating the nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims.  Where the conduct sued upon 
did not occur in California, was not directed at individuals or entities in California, 
and caused no injuries in California or to California residents, neither our state‘s 
interest in regulating conduct within its borders (Vons, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 472) 
nor its interest in providing a forum for its residents to seek redress for their 
injuries (id. at p. 473) is implicated.  On the critical question of why a Texan‘s 
claim he was injured in Texas by taking Plavix prescribed and sold to him in 
Texas should be adjudicated in California, rather than Texas (or in Delaware or 
New York, BMS‘s home states), the majority offers no persuasive answer. 
35 
 
CONCLUSION 
Like the majority, I conclude BMS, despite its significant business activities 
in California, is not at home in our state for purposes of asserting general personal 
jurisdiction over it.  But neither, in my view, is specific jurisdiction over the 
nonresident plaintiffs‘ claims proper.  No substantial connection has been shown 
between BMS‘s activities in California and the nonresidents‘ claims, which arose 
out of BMS‘s marketing and sales of Plavix in other states.  
For this reason, I respectfully dissent.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
WERDEGAR, J. 
 
WE CONCUR: 
 
CHIN, J. 
CORRIGAN, J. 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion Bristol-Myers Squibb Company v. Superior Court 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted XXX 228 Cal.App.4th 605 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S221038 
Date Filed: August 29, 2016 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: Superior 
County: San Francisco 
Judge: John E. Munter 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Counsel: 
 
Lea Brilmayer; Horvitz & Levy, Jon B Eisenberg; Arnold & Porter, Jerome B. Falk, Jr., Sean M. SeLegue, 
Sharon D. Mayo, Jeremy McLaughlin, Steven G. Reade, Daniel S. Pariser, Anna K. Thompson, Maurice A. 
Letter and Anand Agneshwar for Petitioner. 
 
Mayer Brown and Donald M. Falk for Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, California 
Chamber of Commerce and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America as Amici Curiae on 
behalf of Petitioner. 
 
Goodwin Proctor, Richard A. Oetheimer, Sarah K. Frederick, David J. Zimmer and Claire C. Jacobson for 
Generic Pharmaceutical Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioner. 
 
Pepper Hamilton, Nicholas M. Kouletsis, Christopher W. Wasson and Eric S. Wolfish for American Tort 
Reform Association, National Association of Manufacturers, National Federation of Independent Business 
and Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioner. 
 
Utrecht & Lenvin and Paul F. Utrecht for Washington Legal Foundation as Amicus Curiae on behalf of 
Petitioner. 
 
No appearance for Respondent. 
 
Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik, Kelly McMeekin, Hunter J. Shkolnik, John Lytle, Jessica Y. Lee, Shayna E. 
Sacks, Priya Gandhi; Audet & Partners, William M. Audet, Joshua C. Ezrin, Mark E. Burton; Esner, Chang 
& Boyer and Stuart B. Esner for Real Parties in Interest. 
 
J. Burton LeBlanc; Andrus Anderson, Lori E. Andrus, Jenny Lee Anderson; Law Offices of Collyn A. 
Peddie and Collyn A. Peddie for American Association for Justice as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Real 
Parties in Interest. 
 
The Arkin Law Firm, Sharon J. Arkin; Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd and Kevin K. Green for 
Consumer Attorneys of California as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Real Parties in Interest. 
 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Anand Agneshwer 
Arnold & Porter 
399 Park Avenue 
New York, NY  10022-4690 
(212) 715-1000 
 
Stuart B. Esner 
Esner, Chang & Boyer 
234 East Colorado Boulevard, Suite 750 
Pasadena, CA  91101 
(626) 535-9860