Recently, the Superior Court of California, granted Italy-based Herniamesh’s motion to quash its lawsuit regarding alleged defective transvaginal mesh products. Rudolph V. Pino, Jr., senior counsel; John M. Socolow, partner; William T.J. Salerno, partner; and Stephanie Gonzalez, partner, all of Fitzpatrick & Hunt, Pagano, Aubert, LLP handled the case for the firm.
The plaintiffs filed 36 separate cases in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, alleging that our client, Italy-based Herniamesh S.r.l., designed, manufactured, and sold defective surgical mesh products. There were six California plaintiffs, and 30 non-California plaintiffs. Herniamesh designed, manufactured, labeled, and packaged the mesh products in Italy, and sold the mesh products to its distributor, California-based Caldera Medical, Inc. All sales of the mesh products to Caldera were “FOB Chivasso,” which also is in Italy.
Herniamesh filed motions to quash on the ground that California court did not have specific personal jurisdiction over Herniamesh in cases filed by the California or non-California plaintiffs. Herniamesh argued that it did not purposefully avail itself of doing business in California, and the plaintiffs’ claims did not arise out of, and were not related to, conduct by Herniamesh in California.
Following completion of extensive jurisdictional discovery and oral argument, the Court granted Herniamesh’s motions to quash, holding there was no basis to exercise specific jurisdiction over Herniamesh, and all cases were dismissed.