West Virginia Plaintiffs Haunted By Past Excesses

We remember how, shortly after the atrocious decision in Johnson & Johnson v. Karl, 647 S.E.2d 899 (W. Va. 2007), rejecting altogether the learned intermediary rule, litigation tourists visiting West Virginia argued that Karl represented that state's "public policy" and therefore the learned intermediary rule could not apply even to their out-of-state cases under the "public policy" exception to the ordinary rules for sorting out choice of law issues. This was also back in the halcyon days (for the other side) of essentially unlimited plaintiff forum shopping pre-Bauman, so the specter existed that, if this argument succeeded, plaintiffs from all over the country, or even the world, would flock to West Virginia, and by the mere fact of their litigation tourism, thereby rid themselves of one of our side's most significant arguments.