Plaintiffs sued pharmaceutical Wyeth in New York state court, alleging that their cancer was caused by Wyeth hormone replacement therapy. Defendants moved the New York Court to dismiss the case as falling outside the applicable New York statute of limitation.
Defendants’ motion was apparently well-taken, plaintiffs knew it, and they hurried off to bring suit in Minnesota and, by doing so, hoped to benefit from Minnesota’s more generous six-year statute of limitation. A valiant but futile effort…
The New York court granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on their New York claims.
U.S. Mag. Judge Jeanne Graham (D. Minn.) ruled favorably to Defendants on their motion for summary judgment against plaintiffs’ claims in Minnesota based on plaintiffs’ loss in New York, even though plaintiffs’ claims were not barred under the Minnesota statute of limitation (and they brought suit in Minnesota before they lost in New York). U.S. District Court Judge Ann Montgomery adopted Judge Graham’s Report and Recommendation. For those interested in the complexities of federal/state substance/procedure civil procedure analysis, Judge Montgomery’s 11-page opinion sets out the analysis succinctly.