Cheryl Dalton v. Teva North America
Opinion
Cheryl Dalton appeals the summary judgment entered against her in this products liability case. The district court held that Dalton's claims failed under Indiana law because she did not provide expert evidence on the issue of causation. Dalton contends that she did not have to provide expert evidence because the cause of her injuries would be readily apparent to a lay juror. Because the district court correctly applied Indiana law, we affirm.
I.
In 2007, Dalton's doctor implanted a ParaGard Intrauterine Device ("IUD") in her uterus. An IUD is a form of long-term birth control, and the one Dalton used is manufactured, marketed, and distributed by a group of corporate affiliates whom we will collectively call "Teva." It is not clear what role each of those corporate affiliates plays in relation to this IUD, but this appeal does not require us to sort that out.
Dalton became dissatisfied with the IUD in 2013 and asked her doctor to remove it. The doctor did so by grasping the IUD's strings with a ring forcep and pulling the IUD down. The procedure, however, removed only part of the IUD. A piece had broken off either before or during the removal, and that piece was now lodged in her uterus. Dalton's doctor advised her that removing the remaining portion of the IUD would require a hysterectomy.
Dalton sued Teva in federal court. She asserted three products liability claims, which she styled as "strict liability," "strict products liability failure to warn," and "manufacturer's defect." Under the case-management plan submitted by the parties and adopted by the district court, Dalton had until November 18th to disclose any expert witness and serve the expert witness report required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2). When Dalton made no expert disclosures, Teva moved for summary judgment. It argued that Indiana law requires expert testimony to show causation in products liability actions, and Dalton's failure to procure any meant that she could not prove an essential element of her claims. Dalton responded that the causation issue was so straightforward that expert testimony was unnecessary. The district court granted summary judgment to Teva.
II.
It has been a struggle to get the information we need to determine whether
*690
subject matter jurisdiction exists in this case. Because the claims in this suit arise under state law, Dalton relied on the diversity jurisdiction statute,
Dalton's complaint did not allege the citizenship of these defendants. It asserted that the defendants as a group "are incorporated and have their headquarters in the state of Pennsylvania or another state different from the Plaintiff." But a complaint may not merely allege diversity of citizenship without identifying the defendants' states of citizenship,
McCready v. eBay, Inc.
,
Dalton's opening brief on appeal was similarly deficient. In any case premised upon diversity jurisdiction, Circuit Rule 28(a)(1) requires the appellant to include a jurisdictional statement identifying "the jurisdictional amount and the citizenship of each party to the litigation." Even though we have clearly stated that "an appellant's naked declaration that there is diversity of citizenship is never sufficient,"
Thomas v. Guardsmark, LLC
,
*691 We raised these problems at oral argument, and in post-argument supplemental briefing, the parties finally accounted for the three remaining defendants. We now know that one unserved defendant is just the past name of another unserved defendant, who is a citizen of Delaware and Kansas, and that the final unserved defendant does not exist and has never existed. Having confirmed that no defendant is a citizen of Indiana, we are finally able to conclude that subject-matter jurisdiction exists. It should not have taken us two rounds of jurisdictional statements, oral argument, and supplemental briefing to extract this basic information from the parties.
III.
Dalton's claims arise under the Indiana Products Liability Act, which governs all consumer actions against a manufacturer for physical harm caused by a product, "regardless of the substantive legal theory or theories upon which the action is brought."
Ford Motor Co. v. Rushford
,
The Act insists upon expert testimony when an issue "is not within the understanding of a lay person."
Piltch
,
Dalton contends that "proximate cause is obvious" in this case because it involves "uncomplicated facts that lead to only on[e] conclusion." In Dalton's view, a juror could look at a broken IUD and plainly see that some error of Teva's caused the break. But as the district court held, that is exactly the sort of speculation that is insufficient to sustain a products liability action under the Indiana law. Dalton provides no explanation for how a lay juror faced with a broken IUD could identify the cause of the break-maybe the IUD was damaged after coming into the possession of the physician, maybe human error resulted in damage or some other problem during implantation or removal, or maybe there's another explanation entirely.
This case is far removed from situations in which a causation issue is so obvious that a plaintiff may forgo expert testimony.
See, e.g.
,
Higgins v. Koch Dev. Corp.
,
*692
Piltch
,
Just as in Piltch , a judgment for the plaintiff in this case would require the jurors to speculate about the existence of a defect, the reason for the proven defect, and that the proven defect caused the break. Contrary to Dalton's contention, the issue of causation in her case is not obvious. The district court was therefore correct to hold that Dalton could not prove her tort claims without expert testimony.
IV.
Dalton's remaining argument is difficult to parse. She appears to contend that even if expert testimony is necessary on her manufacturing-defect claim, it is unnecessary on her claims that are denominated as "strict liability" and "failure to warn." Her argument on this point is only one sentence, and inadequately briefed arguments are forfeited.
See
Puffer v. Allstate Ins. Co.
,
Dalton shifts gears in her reply brief. This argument is also unclear, but she seems to fault the district court's opinion for failing to address why it was entering summary judgment on her failure-to-warn and strict-liability claims. She has misunderstood the district court's opinion. The court discussed Dalton's wholesale failure to provide evidence of causation, and all of her claims require proof of causation.
Kovach v. Caligor Midwest
,
The district court's judgment is AFFIRMED.
Dalton's complaint satisfied the amount-in-controversy requirement because it sought more than $75,000 in damages.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Cheryl DALTON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TEVA NORTH AMERICA, Et Al., Defendants-Appellees.
- Cited By
- 38 cases
- Status
- Published