Seventh Circuit Sides with Families in Cow’s Milk Formula Cases, Reaffirms Plaintiffs’ Choice of Forum

This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit answered them. It ruled for the families.

The companies had persuaded a lower court to move these cases out of the families’ chosen state court and into federal court, on a novel theory: that the families had not pursued one of the local defendants aggressively enough, and so had forfeited their choice of forum. It was an attempt to rewrite the rules of jurisdiction to the defendants’ advantage.

The Seventh Circuit rejected it outright. The court reaffirmed a principle that runs back to the earliest days of the Republic: plaintiffs are the masters of their own cases, and they are free to choose the forum they believe best serves justice. A defendant does not get to strip that choice away by second-guessing a family’s litigation strategy. As the court put it, if the rules governing these cases need to change, that is a task for Congress, not a favor the courts will grant powerful corporations.

The decision returns these cases toward the state court where the families first filed. And as published precedent, it safeguards that same right for countless plaintiffs to come.

At Keller Postman, we represent thousands of families across the country in the cow’s milk-based infant formula litigation. Decisions like this one matter because accountability begins with a family’s right to be heard. We will keep fighting to ensure manufacturers answer for the harm done to the most vulnerable infants among us, in the courtrooms these families choose.

Seventh Circuit Sides with Families in Cow’s Milk Formula Cases, Reaffirms Plaintiffs’ Choice of Forum