Opinion
Civil Action No. 04-451 (EGS).
June 3, 2004
ORDER
Upon consideration of the Defendants' Motion to Transfer, the Response, and Reply thereto, it is by the Court hereby
ORDERED that, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), this case shall be transferred to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) provides: "For the convenience of the parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought." Id.
The interest of justice favors transfer of this civil action to the Southern District of New York for several reasons. First, Judge Sidney Stein's familiarity with the patent prosecution history of Oxycontin and the entire record of Purdue Pharma, L.P. v. Endo Pharm. Inc., 2004 WL 26523 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 5, 2004), from which this lawsuit stems, makes him best suited to preside over this litigation. Requiring a second federal judge to attempt to master the scientific and technical requirements of the Oxycontin patent prosecution would be a poor use of scarce judicial resources.
Second, there are approximately 60 pending cases involving nearly identical issues of fact and law in district courts across the country. Thirty-nine of these cases are currently pending in the Southern District of New York. Moreover, the Endo counterclaim, which also presents similar issues of fact and law, has been litigated before Judge Stein in the Southern District of New York for two years. Therefore, the Court agrees that "[t]he interests of justice are better served when a case is transferred to the district court where related actions are pending." Martin-Trigona v. Meister, 668 F. Supp. 1, 3 (D.C.C. 1987). Here, transfer will prevent a "waste of time, energy, and money" and will "protect litigants, witnesses and the public against unnecessary inconvenience and expense," which § 1404(a) was designed to avoid. Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U.S. 616, 616 (1964).
Other federal district courts addressing similar cases against Purdue Pharma have transferred those cases to the Southern District of New York. See White v. Purdue Pharma Co. et al., No. 04-857 (GEB) (D.N.J.) and Burse v. Purdue Pharma Co. et al., No. 04-594 (SC) (N.D. Cal.); Schecher v. Purdue Pharma L.P. et al., No. C-04-713 (SC) (N.D. Cal.); Schecher v. Purdue Pharma L.P. et al., No. 04-4015-JAR (D. Kan.); Balloveras v. Purdue Pharma Co., No. 04-20360-CIV-MORENO (S.D. Fla. May 19, 2004); Deutsch v. Purdue Pharma, Case No. 4:04CV354 JCH (E.D. Mo. 2004).
Third, the majority of facts alleged in the Complaint relate to Purdue Pharma's conduct in the New York metropolitan area. Oxycontin was developed and the patents were prosecuted in New York and Connecticut. Moreover, while it is unlikely that plaintiffs will need to testify at trial, all of the witnesses who testified in the patent prosecution action, and who would likely be called upon again to testify, reside in the New York metropolitan area. See DeLoach v. Philip Morris Co., 132 F. Supp.2d 22, 25 (D.D.C. 2000) (noting that "[g]iven the overwhelming number of potential witnesses with first hand knowledge" who reside in the transferee forum, "the convenience of the witnesses favor[ed] transfer".)
While plaintiffs are correct that their choice of forum is generally given deference, in a case such as this one where one federal judge in the Southern District of New York has already spent countless hours mastering the complex technical and scientific requirements of the patent prosecution, thirty-nine of the sixty related cases based on similar factual and legal predicates are pending in the Southern District of New York, and the events giving rise to the claims occurred in the Southern District of New York, deference has been overcome. Therefore, this case shall be transfer to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.