United States Third Circuit

In a class-action securities-fraud complaint arising from the withdrawal from the market of the pain reliever Vioxx, dismissal of claims as barred by the statute of limitations is reversed where: 1) whether plaintiffs, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, should have known of the basis for their claims depended on whether they had sufficient information of possible wrongdoing to place them on inquiry notice or to excite storm warnings of culpable activity; and 2) on the facts of this case, it could not be concluded as a matter of law that plaintiffs were on inquiry notice of defendant's alleged fraud more than two years prior to the filing of their complaint.

Appellate Information

• Argued 06/24/2008
• Decided 09/09/2008
• Published 09/09/2008

Judges

• Before:  SLOVITER, BARRY, and, ROTH Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Third Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• John P. Coffey (Argued), Bernstein, Litowitz, Berger & Grossman, Bruce D. Bernstein, David A.P. Brower, Brower Piven, Mark Levine, Stull, Stull & Brody, Michael Miarmi, Lee A. Weiss, Richard H. Weiss, New York, NY, Paul B. Brickfield, Brickfield & Donahue, River Edge, NJ, James E. Cecchi, Lindsey H. Taylor, Carella, Byrne, Bain, Gilfillan, Cecchi, Stewart & Olstein, Roseland, NJ, Robert T. Haefele, Motley Rice, Mount Pleasant, SC, for Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Robert H. Baron, Evan R. Chesler (Argued), Cravath, Swaine & Moore, William H. Gussman, Martin L. Perschetz, Sung-Hee Suh, Schulte, Roth & Zabel, New York, NY, Roberta Koss, William R. Stein, Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, Washington, DC, Lawrence M. Rolnick, Sheila A. Sadighi, Lowenstein Sandler, Roseland, NJ, for Appellees.