Products Liability Law Reporter

A federal district court held that the Texas limitations statute does not apply to a claim alleging that C.R. Bard, Inc., and Bard Peripheral Vascular, Inc., were liable for a patient’s injuries related to an inferior vena cava (IVC) filter.

Joseph Mixson and his wife sued C.R. Bard, Inc., and Bard Peripheral Vascular, Inc., for Mixson’s injuries allegedly resulting from a fractured IVC filter. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the Texas limitations statute barred at least some of the plaintiffs’ claims. The plaintiffs asserted that Florida’s limitations statute applied and that their claims were timely.

Denying in part, the district court noted that Florida has adopted the Restatement’s “significant relationships test,” which states that the law of the state where an injury occurred applies unless some other state has a more significant relationship to the occurrence and the parties. The court found the significant relationship test examines four contacts in determining whether a state has a significant relationship: the place where the injury occurred, the place where the injury-causing conduct occurred, the parties’ residence or place of incorporation, and the place where the parties’ relationship is centered. Citing case law, the court added that the most important principles are the policies of the forum state and the policies and interests of the other interested states. Moreover, the court said, if the significant relationship test yields no clear result, courts revert to the place of injury to supply the applicable law.

The court found that Joseph’s injuries occurred in Texas and in Florida, in part. With some of the injury occurring in Florida, the court said, application of Texas law is not favored. Moreover, even if Joseph’s injuries had occurred entirely in Texas, Texas law would not be favored in that Joseph was in Texas by happenstance when the military sent him there for treatment. The court also found that according to the parties, the design, manufacture, and sale of the IVC filter took place in Arizona, Florida, and New York—not Texas, a state where no party is from, the court added. Noting that there is no center of the parties’ relationship, the court concluded that there is no significant relationship between the dispute and Texas. Consequently, the Texas limitations statute does not apply to the plaintiffs’ claims.

Citation: Mixson v. C.R. Bard, Inc., 2022 WL 4364153 (N.D. Fla. Sept. 16, 2022).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ member Joshua M. Mankoff, Philadelphia; and Ramon R. Lopez, Aliso Viejo, Calif.