Illinois State Court Rejects Personal Jurisdiction Loophole

In a significant victory for companies litigating in Illinois state court, the defendants in the Zantac litigation recently prevailed on a motion to dismiss the claims of nearly 200 out-of-state residents who alleged out-of-state injuries. The trial court’s order, along with the transcript of the argument and the court’s reasoning, was just posted to Westlaw.¹ The ruling serves as a bulwark against plaintiffs’ continued efforts to erode the standards set for personal jurisdiction in Daimler AG v. Bauman, 579 U.S. 117 (2014), and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 582 U.S. 255 (2017). In particular, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ attempts to use the defendants’ ties to in-state retailer Walgreens, from which the plaintiffs allegedly purchased Zantac in their home states, as a hook to assert specific jurisdiction. To allow plaintiffs to proceed under such a theory would end-run the requirement that jurisdiction be assessed on a defendant-specific basis.²

Background

Beginning in 2020, hundreds of plaintiffs from across the country brought lawsuits in Illinois against the manufacturers and marketers of brand-name drug Zantac — GSK, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Sanofi — alleging that the heartburn medication caused various cancers. Like many of the plaintiffs, the defendants are not Illinois residents.

The defendants moved to dismiss the claims of the non-Illinois plaintiffs for lack of personal jurisdiction. Relying on Daimler and Bristol-Myers Squibb — as well as Rios v. Bayer Corp., 178 N.E. 3d 1088 (Ill. 2020), an Illinois Supreme Court case applying those precedents — the defendants argued that the plaintiffs failed to make the required prima facie showing that an Illinois court could exercise either general or specific personal jurisdiction over product liability claims brought by non-resident plaintiffs against non-resident defendants for products purchased and injuries suffered out of state. The plaintiffs opposed, and oral argument was heard on January 23, 2025. Judge Daniel Trevino, the judge overseeing the coordinated litigation, granted the defendants’ motion from the bench.

Specific Personal Jurisdiction

Oral argument focused almost entirely on specific jurisdiction, with the out-of-state plaintiffs asserting a loophole to Bristol-Myers Squibb and Rios that would allow their claims to proceed in Illinois.

In Bristol-Myers Squibb, the U.S. Supreme Court held that non-resident plaintiffs cannot bring product liability claims against non-resident defendants when their injuries have no connection to the forum. That is because plaintiffs’ claims must “arise out of or relate to” the defendants’ forum contacts.³ The Illinois Supreme Court cemented this protection in Rios, where it held that a defendant’s significant activities in the state — including clinical trials, a physician training program, and marketing activities — were inadequate for specific jurisdiction over out-of-state plaintiffs’ claims.⁴

Seeking to circumvent these cases, the Zantac plaintiffs asked the Cook County court to find an exception to Bristol-Myers and Rios by imputing the activities of Illinois-based retailer Walgreens to the non-resident defendants. Specifically, the plaintiffs argued that because the defendants contracted with Walgreens to market Zantac in Walgreens stores across the country, and each plaintiff purchased Zantac from a Walgreens in his or her home state, the defendants availed themselves of Illinois law in connection with the plaintiffs’ injuries.
The circuit court found this link too tenuous. With no way to connect the out-of-state Zantac purchases to Illinois, the court determined that the plaintiffs had failed to establish any connection between defendants’ Illinois-based activity and their injuries. Echoing Bristol-Myers Squibb and Rios, the court determined that a “defendant[’s] relationship with a third party or other parties is an insufficient basis for jurisdiction.”⁵

The decision thus reinforces the bright-line rules that apply to the personal jurisdiction analysis for out-of-state plaintiffs’ claims, and makes clear that no loophole exists for a corporate defendant’s connections to an in-state retailer.

General Personal Jurisdiction

While general jurisdiction was not the focus of the jurisdictional dispute at oral argument in Zantac, the outcome on that issue also inures to defendants’ benefit.

General jurisdiction exists when a company is “at home” in the forum state.⁶ A corporation is generally considered to be “at home” in the forum(s) where it is incorporated and where it has its principal place of business.⁷

Given the clear consensus that the defendants in Zantac were neither incorporated in Illinois nor had their principal place of business in Illinois, the plaintiffs did not even attempt to assert an exception to Daimler. Instead, the plaintiffs argued that the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., 600 U.S. 122 (2023), which found that a defendant could consent to general jurisdiction in Pennsylvania by registering to do business in the state, should be applied broadly to extend consent jurisdiction over defendants who had registered to do business in Illinois.

The circuit court rejected the argument, which ran headlong into a pre-Mallory ruling from the Illinois Supreme Court that considered whether the state’s registration statute gave rise to jurisdiction by consent and found that it did not.⁸ In Aspen, the court interpreted the plain language of the Illinois statute and noted that it “makes no mention of personal jurisdiction at all.”⁹ “[I]n the absence of any language to the contrary,” the court held, “the fact that a foreign corporation has registered to do business under the Act does not mean that the corporation has thereby consented to general jurisdiction over all causes of action.”¹⁰

In applying Aspen in the Zantac litigation, the Cook County court recognized the case as binding precedent, undisturbed by Mallory. That ruling is itself consistent with the holding in Mallory, which applied only to the Pennsylvania registration before it, which in turn explicitly warned that registering to do business in the state would give rise to general jurisdiction.¹¹ Defendants litigating in Illinois state court now have precedent to cite for the proposition that Aspen continues to control the question of whether consent jurisdiction is available in the state — and dictates that it is not.

Conclusion

Consistently named one of the nation’s Judicial Hellholes, it comes as no surprise that Cook County, Illinois is one of plaintiffs’ preferred destinations for mass tort litigation. The circuit court’s ruling represents a significant win for corporate defendants that do business in the state and provides additional precedent for the proposition that Illinois courts cannot entertain claims brought by out-of-state plaintiffs against out-of-state defendants for injuries that occurred outside the state.

Erica McCabe contributed to this Advisory. Ms. McCabe is admitted only in Missouri and the District of Columbia; practicing law in Illinois during the pendency of her application for admission to the Illinois Bar and under the supervision of lawyers of the firm who are members in good standing of the Illinois Bar.

© Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP 2025 All Rights Reserved. This Advisory is intended to be a general summary of the law and does not constitute legal advice. You should consult with counsel to determine applicable legal requirements in a specific fact situation.