Joinder Denied: Same Device But Still Too Different

Have you ever gone to a party and felt unwelcome? Neither have we, but the moving party in Bartis v. Biomet, Inc., No. 4:13-cv-00657, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21048 (E.D. Mo. Feb. 4, 2021), sure must have felt that way. She tried to join and intervene in a consolidated set of prosthetic hip-related lawsuits that she said were similar to her own. Alas, the district court was an unwilling host and showed her the door.

Here is what happened. The Bartis plaintiffs' cases were part of an MDL, but were among multiple non-settling cases that the MDL judge remanded to transferor districts for further proceedings and trial. These plaintiffs therefore landed back where they filed-in the Eastern District of Missouri-which consolidated their claims into one civil action. Then, a whole new plaintiff-whom we will call the "moving party"-decided she wanted to join her own hip-related lawsuit to the plaintiffs'.