Firm News
BTNL Attorneys Obtain Win for Indian Glass Manufacturer
BTNL attorney Bruce Barze, along with his co-counsel Bobby Hood, Jr. of the Hood Law Firm in Charleston, South Carolina, obtained an excellent result for Shreno Limited in a lawsuit filed against it by Crum & Forster Specialty Insurance Company (“Crum”) in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, case no. 2:24-cv-04705-DCN.
Crum, as subrogee of a South Carolina company, instituted suit against Shreno, an Indian company, asserting breach of warranty based on Shreno’s manufacture, sale, and delivery of over 4 million 7-ounce glass candle jars. Crum claimed the candle jars were defective. Shreno filed a motion to dismiss based on a lack of personal jurisdiction, also arguing this was a contract dispute that should be resolved, if at all, under the laws of India.
Judge David C. Norton agreed with Shreno and granted the motion to dismiss on March 3, 2025. Reaffirming that the court’s minimum contacts inquiry is defendant-focused, Judge Norton determined that the South Carolina buyer’s decision to ship Shreno’s glass containers into the port of Charleston, after taking possession of them FOB ports in India, was insufficient to prove purposeful availment by Shreno. After analyzing the applicable factors under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2), the court found that Crum did not demonstrate a prima facie case for purposeful availment and failed to show that Shreno had sufficient minimum contacts with South Carolina for the court to exercise personal jurisdiction over it. The court dismissed the case accordingly.
This was the second win for Shreno and BTNL in this long-running dispute. Crum had filed an earlier lawsuit in January 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Case No. 3:24-cv-191-E. With assistance from Nisha Byers at Cooper Scully in Dallas, Shreno also filed a motion to dismiss in that case based on a lack of personal jurisdiction (on August 12, 2024). Seventeen days later, Crum filed a Notice of Dismissal without prejudice in the Texas case and advised it had re-filed against Shreno in South Carolina.
The Shreno glass business was established in Baroda, India as “Alembic Glass Industries Ltd.” in 1944, as a result of historical necessity. At that time, India’s entire requirement of glass bottles was being met by imports from Europe; however, the Second World War caused an abrupt break in the supply chain. As a result, the flagship company of the Alembic group (the oldest pharmaceuticals company in India today) could not obtain bottles for the packaging of its pharmaceutical products, and Alembic Glass Industries Ltd. was set up to fill this need. The name of the company was changed to Shreno Limited in 2005 to differentiate its identity from the group’s pharmaceuticals business.
Attorneys at BTNL have represented Alembic and its affiliates in U.S. matters for nearly ten years.
About Barze Taylor Noles Lowther LLC: Barze Taylor Noles Lowther LLC is a Birmingham, Alabama-based law firm with a national practice focused on litigation, insurance coverage issues, and environmental matters. For more information, visit www.btnllaw.com or follow @BTNL_law_firm.