Court Allows Out-of-State Shiley Suits : Medicine: State panel refuses to overturn ruling permitting hundreds of heart valve recipients to file claims here.

A state court has refused to overturn a decision that allows hundreds of out-of-state recipients of potentially defective heart valves to sue in California.

Pfizer Inc., the corporate parent of Shiley Inc. in Irvine, asked the Court of Appeal last month to reconsider Orange County Superior Court Judge William F. Rylaarsdam’s ruling in favor of 129 out-of-state U.S. recipients, who have valves that have not malfunctioned yet are pursuing legal action because of fear that the devices will do so.

Officials for Pfizer, based in New York, had argued that the plaintiffs were “forum shopping” for the court most likely to support their claims of fraud and emotional distress. But the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana, in a brief ruling issued last week, denied the appeal without explanation.

A spokesman for Shiley said Pfizer will “continue to seek relief from (Rylaarsdam’s) decision.”

About 51,000 people nationwide depend on Bjork-Shiley convexo-concave valves manufactured between 1979 and 1986. About 300 people have died when struts in the valves came apart.

“We’re pleased but not surprised,” said James Capretz, an Irvine lawyer whose firm represents most of the 129 out-of-state plaintiffs. “. . . This is where most of the valves were manufactured. (The decision) takes away the final legal hurdle that blocked those valve recipients, who are already suffering from stress and anxiety, from having their day in court.”

About 190 recipients are suing Shiley and Pfizer in California. The bulk of the claims are pending in Orange County Superior Court. The number of recipients suing Shiley and Pfizer could top 500 once the issue over jurisdiction is fully resolved and the trials begin. The first of the trials is scheduled for mid-July.

Rylaarsdam’s decision, issued in November, was the second in which he has ruled that out-of-state recipients in the heart valve case can sue in California. The state Supreme Court ordered him to reconsider his initial decision. Rylaarsdam still ruled in favor of out-of-state U.S. plaintiffs.

Even so, Rylaarsdam said 17 recipients who have filed suits but live outside the United States do not have grounds to take legal action against Shiley in California because they do not have the same constitutional rights as U.S. plaintiffs.

The recipients now suing Shiley and Pfizer refused to accept the terms of a $215-million class-action settlement approved by a federal judge in Cincinnati last summer. That settlement is being appealed.