Retailer Claim Keeps Contact Lens Case in State Court

FORT MYERS, Fla. - A federal judge has granted a contact lens solution plaintiff's motion to have her case remanded to state court, despite her counsel's insistence in a parallel proceeding that all similar cases be consolidated in a federal venue. Shallcross v. Bausch & Lomb, et al., No. 06-325 (M.D. Fla.).

In an opinion and order entered Jan. 16, Judge John E. Steele ruled that a distributor defendant named in the case was not fraudulently joined, as defendant Bausch & Lomb had argued in removing the case to Judge Steele's U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.