China’s Newest Tainted Dairy Export: Litigation
A lot of this kind of thing going around these days, huh? Here’s the latest incarnation of the milk story:
Parents of Chinese children who died or became ill after drinking infant milk formula contaminated with melamine say they will sue a subsidiary of a Chinese milk powder manufacturer based in the U.S. state of Maryland.
A member of one of the affected families surnamed Liu said Qingdao Shengyuan Milk Co. Ltd., a dairy products manufacturer based in the eastern China city of Qingdao, had a Delaware-registered investment subsidiary with offices in Maryland, rendering it subject to U.S. law.
“We have signed a contract with a Maryland-based lawyer who will represent us in this collective compensation suit,” Liu said.
“There are milk victim parents who are willing to pay for the legal fees and expenses and who want to pursue justice in the United States,” he said.
While I’m sure that there are lawyers out there who are willing to take on a case like this and parents angry/upset enough to pursue the matter, the viability of the suit is another issue entirely.
It’s been a long time since I’ve studied U.S. civil procedure (15 years ago, yikes!), so I cannot really offer a definitive opinion on the issue. That being said, this appears to be a suit brought by Chinese nationals against the U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese enterprise based on a tort that occurred in China. I don’t know, folks, but that sounds kinda weak from a jurisdictional standpoint.
I will, however, defer to the experts and/or the more academically inclined of my brethren. Yes, I’m looking at you guys: Dan, Will, Tom (or anyone else who wishes to chime in).
I suppose if the government won’t allow them to sue the Chinese company, their only option would be to attempt to sue a company in the US. The lawyer probably knows he’ll lose the case, but will get paid anyway.
Weird. Very weird. Much of this story just doesn’t make sense. Rather than write a full page comment or try to be concise, I just went ahead and did a full post on it.
There might be some jurisdictional problems bringing suit in the 4th Circuit. The Eastern District of Louisiana has gone the farthest in upsetting forum non conveniens claims. Martinez v Dow Chemical, 219 F.Supp.2d 719. But, in that case the defendants were US companies. Still, it is a pretty snazzy idea, and I can’t wait to hear more!
I looked at Dan’s posting and I agree with him. My personal feeling is that its a weak case. I don’t know for sure b/c I dont know how the facts are being cast, but I can say that plaintiffs will have a really tough time even getting this heard outside of something significant happening here in the U.S. that caused the harm. (Unless the complaint has a lot of stuff that we didn’t expect… but I find that doubtful)
I worked on some litigation that involved some chemical products and ended up that plaintiffs in South America chased my client in America. I left that firm before the case reached a resolution, but if I recall correctly after reading it in the papers, that case went away b/c there just wasn’t anything in there that justified an American court hearing the case.
I can’t offer an expert opinion on this, but having worked at a very reputable plaintiff’s class action firm for a short stint (not the same firm mentioned above, I moved to the defense side), I would bet that the lawyers there would find this case pretty unlikely to move beyond anything substantial as well.