What is a Multi District Litigation Lawsuit?

Ordinarily, when an individual is injured, he or she can take that issue before the court by initiating a lawsuit. However, when multiple individuals are injured by the same person, event or product the process becomes a little bit more complicated. In an MDL (multi district litigation) multiple Plaintiffs come forward and allege that they have experienced harm caused by the same defendant or group of defendants.

Congress created the Untied State Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation and empowered it with the ability to bring together multiple civil actions, occurring in multiple U.S. district courts,  “involving one or more common questions of fact” to one single, centralized district. 28 U.S.C. § 1407. It’s this Judicial Panel that decides whether cases can be consolidated into an MDL and which judge will preside over the MDL.

As such an MDL can only exist in federal court, and most such actions are the result of Defendant’s with nationwide reach or the ability to injure multiple Plaintiffs. For example, Phillips CPAP machines, Ozempic and 3M Defective Earplugs are all mass tort actions that have affected Plaintiffs from multiple states. Product liability is therefore the most common type of MDL you can expect to become involved with at some point in time.

Actions are consolidated as MDL’s for ease of administration and to ensure consistent legal rulings across jurisdictions. For example, if each of the hundreds if not thousands of cases in an MDL were to go forward individually the Defendants would have to provide discovery to each of the Plaintiffs individually, or a judge in on case might rule one way in a pre-trial motion while another judge might rule another way. An MDL streamlines the legal process, ensures that there is one authority issuing consistent decisions and lets the parties shift their focus onto the meat of the case rather than being forced to deal with trivialities.

Ongoing Mass Torts Our Attorneys Are Handling:

So Is This A Class Action?

Not exactly. In order to become part of an MDL you still need to have your attorney file a case for you in your resident district court. Once filed, you will remain a Plaintiff in the MDL. On the other hand a class action arises when a judge determines that there is adequate grounds for a lawsuit that alleges a defendant, or defendants injured a large group of people. In a class action a small group of class members, called class representatives represents a broader class who have not filed their own individual actions and are thus not Plaintiffs to the action.

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Who Resolves an MDL?

Most MDLs, owing to their nature as large, technically complex cases that require much research and expert testimony, tend to settle or in some fashion before reaching trial. Judges may also conduct several Bellwether trials. These trials give Plaintiffs and Defendants a better understanding of how the future trials would play out and allow them to make strategic decisions about how to proceed. If parties are unable to reach a settlement agreement then individual cases will be returned to their home districts for individual trials. On other occasions a judge may determine that there is insufficient legal or factual evidence for certain subsets of cases and order them dismissed.