What is an MDL Centralization Proceeding?
When a defective drug, medical device, or other type of consumer product is linked to reports of user injuries and deaths, many personal injury lawsuits may be filed in courtrooms across the United States seeking financial compensation for medical bills, pain and suffering, and other damages.
To help speed up the process of handling dozens and sometimes thousands of separate civil lawsuits alleging similar legal claims relating to the same allegedly defective product, federal court officials sometimes merge the individual cases together into a single grouping, called a Multidistrict Litigation Panel.
The United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, also known as the MDL Panel, was created by Congress in 1968. The panel’s authority is codified as 28 U.S.C. §1407.
Millions of Claims Consolidated Since 1968
Since the MDL panel was formed more than 40 years ago, it has considered motions for centralization in over 2,000 dockets involving more than 300,000 cases and comprising millions of individual legal claims. Centralized MDL cases have included lawsuits brought involving allegations of mesothelioma cancer caused by exposure to toxic asbestos, injuries caused by dangerous and defective drugs, patent infringement, airplane crashes, train wrecks, hotel fires, corporate securities fraud, and violations of federal employment law.
Recently centralized MDL actions have included lawsuits filed alleging injuries and deaths caused by the Yaz and Yasmin birth-control pills, suicidal thoughts and other side effects associated with the stop-smoking drug Chantix, and liver damage and cardiovascular damage suffered by users of the fat-burning Hydroxycut dietary supplements.
What Does an MDL Mean to My Case?
The goal of the MDL process is to avoid duplicate discovery, the process in which parties to a lawsuit hand over to the opposing side their evidence before a trial is held. It also serves to avoid inconsistent rulings on pre-trial matters such as the admissibility of evidence and to conserve the resources of the courts, the parties, and their attorneys.
To people injured by defective or dangerous drugs or other products, an MDL consolidation can mean their case will be heard faster than if it was left in the court district where it was filed. Centralized lawsuits that cannot be settled or otherwise disposed of at the MDL stage are eventually returned to their originating district for a trial.
Common Factual Questions Considered
In deciding whether to subject individual lawsuits to the authority of an MDL, the judicial panel considers whether civil actions pending in different federal districts involve one or more common questions of fact, so that transferring them to one federal district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings makes sense.
If the panel determines that an MDL centralization order is proper, a federal judge and courtroom is selected to preside over the matter and assigned to conduct pre-trial hearings. Sometimes, which judge and judicial district will be assigned an MDL centralization action is a hotly debated topic among parties to centralized lawsuits, who vie to steer the case to the judge and district they believe will be best for their side.
However, the MDL Panel has the final say on where the consolidated cases will go.
The MDL Panel currently consists of seven sitting federal judges who are appointed to serve on the Panel by the Chief Justice of the United States. By law, no two judges serving on the panel may be from the same federal judicial circuit.
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