Madison County Circuit Judge Dennis Ruth
MT. VERNON, ILLINOIS - The makers of Similac and Enfamil baby formula have won a new chance to move some of the thousands of cases they are facing over alleged harm to newborns from their cow's milk-based infant formula out of Madison County's circuit court.
On June 3, a three-justice panel of the Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court said they believed Madison County Circuit Judge Dennis Ruth wrongly used factors outside the law to deny the attempt by Mead Johnson & Co. and Abbot Laboratories to transfer some of the lawsuits against them to courts in northern Illinois.
In the ruling, authored by Justice James D. Moore, the panel said Ruth fell short in considering all of the various "public and private interest factors" courts are required to review before ruling on requests to transfer venue.
And the justices particularly criticized Ruth for declaring the companies had no legal leg to stand on in asserting Madison County's courts would be inconvenient for their current and past company executives and other key witnesses, because they can simply testify online via live streaming and video conferencing.
"In the present case, the circuit court either misapprehended or disregarded the directive to consider all relevant private and public factors as only one of the private factors concerning the availability of witnesses was analyzed in the order. None of the public factors were considered in the order," Moore wrote in the opinion.
"Further, the circuit court considered the availability of Internet-based testimony and refiling in federal court, neither of which are proper factors for a forum non conveniens analysis."
"It is clear that the circuit court’s order ... denying the motions pursuant to forum non conveniens was an abuse of discretion due to the misapprehension or disregard for the law requiring an analysis of the public and private factors."
The decision comes as Mead Johnson and Abbott continue to face a mounting number of lawsuits over claims their formula products harmed babies.
The lawsuits accuse the formula makers of selling products that allegedly caused the illness known as necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC.
NEC is a condition which results in the death of bowel tissue and can lead to severe illness and death in newborns, particularly if they are born premature. NEC carries a fatality rate of around 15-40% in infants suffering from the condition.
The lawsuits claim Mead Johnson and Abbott Labs, the makers of Similac and Enfamil infant formulas, should be made to pay families with infants who died or were injured by NEC because the companies allegedly failed to warn the public about the alleged enhanced NEC risks posed by their cow's milk-based formulas, compared to human breast milk.
According to court documents, there are "thousands" of lawsuits pending in state and federal courts in Madison County, Chicago and elsewhere in the U.S., all leveling the same claims against Mead Johnson and Abbott Labs.
According to a count posted by prominent trial lawyer firm Motley Rice, 740 of those pending cases are consolidated into one action in federal court in Chicago.
Some sources have indicated the formula makers and plaintiffs may be nearing a settlement to resolve the consolidated federal cases, including at least 30 new cases added to the action during the month of May 2025.
However, that settlement would not include the thousands of other cases believed to still remain in state courts, including Madison County and neighboring St. Clair County in Illinois' Metro East suburbs of St. Louis.
Both Madison and St. Clair counties are considered to be among the country's most plaintiff-friendly court jurisdictions. The counties, for instance, annually land on the list of the country's "Judicial Hellholes," or the country's most anti-business court systems, as measured by lawsuit reform advocacy organization, the American Tort Reform Association.
In St. Clair County last year, for instance, a jury notably ordered Mead Johnson to pay $60 million to the family of an infant who died from NEC, allegedly caused by consuming infant formula.
This year, lawsuits continue to be filed in Madison County Circuit Court against Mead Johnson and Abbot Labs over NEC claims.
From the beginning of the sweeping litigation, the companies have sought to move the cases out of the Metro East court systems. They have argued state courts, like Madison County, aren't appropriate judicial forums, because the companies are not headquartered anywhere near there, have no production facilities there, and only sell their products to consumers and other customers in the county, as they do throughout most of the U.S.
The companies have particularly sought to consolidate and relocate the Madison County lawsuits to either Lake County or Cook County, in northeastern Illinois, nearer particularly to Abbot's headquarters in Chicago's north suburbs.
Those requests have been repeatedly rebuffed by judges, including by the Illinois Supreme Court. The state high court, however, ordered the cases consolidated before Judge Ruth for the purposes of common pre-trial proceedings.
In 2023, Mead Johnson and Abbott asked Ruth to order some of those claims to be transferred out of Madison County, renewing their claims concerning lack of jurisdiction and also claiming the cases shouldn't be in Madison County under the so-called doctrine of forum non conveniens.
Essentially, the companies asserted the evidence and witnesses needed to decide the cases weren't located near Madison County and other courts nearer to the defendants' actual bases of operation would promote greater judicial efficiency and allow the companies to more fairly defend themselves.
Ruth rejected both of those claims. The judge said Abbott Labs employed two sales representatives in Madison County and that, he said, was enough to establish they had strong enough business ties to the county to be forced to try the cases there. And establishing proper jurisdiction over one defendant is enough to keep other defendants - in this case, Mead Johnson - in that court, as well, regardless of Mead Johnson's actual presence in the county.
The appeals court upheld that ruling.
However, the appellate justices said Ruth fell short of reviewing the companies' claims under forum non conveniens. On appeal, the companies said Ruth glossed over or ignored multiple factors he was supposed to consider when analyzing their motion to transfer under forum non conveniens.
The justices said Ruth only considered the potential impact on witnesses, leaving aside several other so-called "private interest factors," and did not consider "public interest factors" at all in his ruling.
And they said Ruth improperly declared that modern live streaming and videoconferencing technology shuts down any claims concerning the inconvenience posed to witnesses who may need to travel to present testimony and evidence.
In his ruling, Ruth scoffed at the companies' claims of inconvenience, declaring he did not believe them to be "as hamstrung as they claim to be," given the ubiquitous use of streaming and conferencing tech in courts in Madison County and elsewhere "in this post-covid legal world."
The appeals panel ordered the case to be sent back to Judge Ruth, with directions to properly consider the companies' transfer request.
Plaintiffs are represented in the cases covered by the transfer dispute by attorneys with the Holland Law Firm, of Granite City and St. Louis, and Keller Lenkner, of Chicago.
Abbott Labs is represented by attorneys with the firms of HeplerBroom, of Edwardsville, and Winston & Strawn, of Chicago.
Mead Johnson is represented by attorneys from the firms of Armstrong Teasdale, of St. Louis, and Steptoe & Johnson, of Chicago.
