Opinion ID: 857137
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of Pfizer's Motion to Transfer Venue

Text: The coordinated plaintiffs filed their complaint in the Massachusetts district court on February 1, 2005. More than four years later, on December 4, 2009, Pfizer filed a motion to transfer venue to California pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404. Pfizer's motion followed more than two months of discussions among the coordinated plaintiffs, the defendants, and the Massachusetts district court regarding the possibility of holding a bellwether trial as to one TPP's claims against the defendants. The court stated on September 18, 2009, that it favored holding a trial on Kaiser's claims, a view joined by plaintiffs on October 2, 2009.22 Defendants opposed, saying that any bellwether trial should not be on Kaiser's claims because Kaiser is the most atypical of the named TPPs. During none of these discussions did Pfizer suggest that venue should be transferred to California. On November 12, 2009, the district court ordered that [t]he trial in the action brought by coordinated plaintiff Kaiser will begin [before it] on February 22, 2010. About a month later, Pfizer moved to transfer venue pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404, arguing for the first time that transfer was favored by (1) Kaiser's residence in California, (2) California's greater interest 22 While the coordinated plaintiffs represented that they would prefer to all proceed to trial at one time, they agreed that if the court were to initially hold only one trial, it should be Kaiser's. -61- in the litigation, (3) the greater familiarity of California federal courts with the California UCL, and (4) the convenience of witnesses. The district court, with years of experience in the case, denied this motion, explaining that (1) Kaiser did not wish to transfer venue; (2) transfer would result in considerable delay as any transferee judge familiarized herself with the case; and (3) defendants would not be prejudiced, since they had access to videotaped deposition testimony of non-party witnesses. Kaiser Findings, 2011 WL 3852254, at  n.6. On appeal, Pfizer argues that this was error because it violated the MDL transfer requirements pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407(a) and the rule of Lexecon Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523 U.S. 26 (1998), and because it was an abuse of discretion, in any event, under 28 U.S.C. § 1404. Pfizer is wrong on the law. Section 1407(a) provides that an action transferred to any district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings . . . shall be remanded by the panel at or before the conclusion of such pretrial proceedings to the district from which it was transferred unless it shall have been previously terminated. The Court held in Lexecon that a district court conducting such pretrial proceedings could not invoke § 1404(a) to assign a transferred case to itself for trial. 523 U.S. at 28. The coordinated plaintiffs filed their complaint in the District of Massachusetts; it was not transferred -62- to this district for pretrial proceedings, and so § 1407(a) and Lexecon do not govern here. There was no abuse of discretion as to § 1404. See Coady v. Ashcraft & Gerel, 223 F.3d 1, 11 (1st Cir. 2000). Kaiser opposed defendants' motion to transfer, and coordinated plaintiffs Aetna and Guardian were domiciled in New York and Connecticut, respectively. The Massachusetts district court had considerable experience with complex claims against defendants arising out of the fraudulent marketing of Neurontin, and coordinated plaintiffs' claims were national in scope, not localized to California.