In a January 24, 2014 opinion in In re Pradaxa (Dabigatran Etexilate) Products Liability Litigation, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the district court's order relocating depositions of foreign employees from Amsterdam to the United States. The relocation was a sanction meant to punish the defendant's discovery abuses, but the Seventh Circuit held that the foreign employees cannot be forced to travel to the US to be deposed.

Defendant Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Boehringer) and its German affiliate Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH manufacture Pradaxa, a blood-thinning drug. Several lawsuits against Boehringer alleging inadequate Pradaxa warning labels were consolidated in the US District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. On December 9, the district court imposed sanctions on Boehringer for discovery abuses. One of the sanctions ordered the relocation of depositions of 13 Boehringer employees, all of whom work in Germany and 10 of whom are not U.S. citizens. The parties had agreed that the depositions would take place in Amsterdam, but the district court ordered that they be relocated to the US. Boehringer petitioned the Seventh Circuit for a writ of mandamus to quash the sanctions.

The Seventh Circuit ordered that the relocation sanction be rescinded. Although district court judges can subpoena US citizens living abroad and force them to come before the court and be deposed, they can only do so when the testimony cannot be obtained by another admissible form (28 U.S.C. § 1783(a)). Here, the evidence can be obtained another way - by deposing the employees in Amsterdam. Furthermore, foreigners who are not in the US cannot be subpoenaed by US courts. The federal rules governing sanctions do not permit the violations of federal limits on compelling discovery in foreign countries.