We love it when plaintiffs make our job easy – and when plaintiff’s counsel is both clueless and obnoxious – well, that’s cause to celebrate in and of itself. When the case is also another decision from the Southern District of Illinois denying remand, well we just can’t help sharing our joy.

It is a well-worn page from plaintiffs’ play book -- to avoid having product liability cases removed to federal court on the basis of diversity jurisdiction, include in the complaint medical malpractice claims against non-diverse treating physicians. In that situation, the removing product manufacturer must convince the federal court to sever (and remand) the malpractice claims, and to retain jurisdiction over the product liability claims. Not an easy task, but also not insurmountable, as evidenced by the recent decision in In re: Yasmin and Yaz (Drospirenone) Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation (Cooke-Bates), 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74076 (S.D. Ill. July 10, 2011).