BARBARA ROTHSTEIN, District Judge
The court has reviewed the correspondence of the parties to the state phenylpropanolamine ("PPA") cases Moore v. Kroger Texas, L.P. and Wyeth Corporation, pending in Texas, and McGuire v. Wyeth, pending in Ohio. Plaintiffs' counsel in these cases have approached this court, seeking an injunction to prevent defendant Wyeth from taking certain expert witness depositions that plaintiffs represent would be duplicative of depositions already taken in this federal multi-district litigation ("MDL") 1407.
The court finds that there is little question that defendant Wyeth is violating the court's order prohibiting the taking of duplicative depositions, and at the very least defeating the intent of the MDL to streamline discovery in these PPA cases. The court also acknowledges that Wyeth, a party-defendant in myriad cases in MDL 1407, is subject to this court's jurisdiction, and therefore would be held to an order issued in the MDL.
The court concludes, however, that enforcing its order against Wyeth by enjoining the depositions at this time would produce an indefensible inequity among the parties. This court's jurisdiction over Moore, McGuire, and plaintiffs in other statecourt cases is questionable, leaving plaintiffs free to conduct whatever discovery they choose, however duplicative of MDL discovery, and apparently, according to defendants, that is precisely what plaintiffs have done. Yet were defendants to seek to limit plaintiffs' discovery efforts in accord with this court's orders, the objections no doubt would be loud and vigorous.
For state-case plaintiffs now to seek refuge in this federal court, therefore, when the obligations would not be reciprocal, is unsupportable. Given these grave concerns of equity, the court declines to issue an injunction.
While the court is concerned that denial of the injunction request results in unreasonable and unnecessary costs to the parties involved, this does not appear to be of concern to counsel conducting discovery. Were plaintiffs to agree to be bound by this court's order concerning duplicative discovery, the court would welcome a request to reconsider this decision.