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1 1 (November 17, 2021)

handle is hein.crs/goveeve0001 and id is 1 raw text is: s I forill telgiltv debt sIne1 4 0 November 17, 2021 Multidistrict and Multicircuit Litigation: Coordinating Related Federal Cases Sometimes a single event or a common set of facts spurs litigation in multiple federal courts. For instance, a plane crash or a widespread product defect may affect individuals from many states and lead to numerous related district court lawsuits, or a federal regulation with national reach may trigger petitions for review in several federal appeals courts. Such proceedings are known as multidistrict litigation or MDL at the district court level and multicircuit petitions for review at the circuit court level. Congress has enacted statutes creating special procedures for both MDL and multicircuit petitions with the goal of allocating judicial resources efficiently and ensuring consistency across related cases. District Court MDL The procedures governing MDL in the trial-level federal district courts date from the 1960s. Between the 1940s and the early 1960s, the federal courts grappled with how to address the increasing complexity of federal litigation, particularly the proliferation of multiple cases raising overlapping questions of law and fact. In the early 1960s, federal courts developed ad hoc procedures to coordinate hundreds of civil suits that arose following criminal antitrust prosecutions of certain electrical equipment manufacturers. Recognizing the need for a more formal and comprehensive solution, the Judicial Conference of the United States also called on Congress to act in this area. In 1968, Congress enacted the district court MDL statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1407, and established the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (MDL Panel). The statute allows the MDL Panel to transfer cases to a single district court for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings. The Panel may exercise this power when cases involve one or more common questions of fact, and when it determines that the transfer will be for the convenience of parties and witnesses and will promote the just and efficient conduct of such actions. The MDL statute gives the MDL Panel significant discretion in determining whether to consolidate proceedings. The MDL Panel reports that since its establishment, it has considered motions for centralization in more than 2,870 dockets involving almost 670,000 cases and millions of claims. The Panel further reports that its dockets encompass litigation categories as diverse as airplane crashes [and other accidents]; mass torts, such as those involving asbestos, drugs and other products liability cases; data security breaches, patent validity and infringement; antitrust price fixing; marketing and sales practices, securities fraud; and employment practices. A key feature of the district court MDL statute is that it allows for transfer and consolidation of pretrial proceedings only. MDL proceedings in a transferee court may include cases originally filed in that district, cases transferred to that district, and cases filed in the transferee district after the proceedings have been centralized there. The transferee court must remand any case that is not terminated before trial to the district from which it was transferred or the district in which the case would have been filed in the first instance. As a practical matter, however, relatively few MDL cases are remanded: the MDL Panel reports that as of September 30, 2020, more than 97% of terminated MDL proceedings were terminated by transferee courts, while fewer than 3% were remanded. One reason for this is that the vast majority of federal cases terminate before trial, either through motions to dismiss or for summary judgment or because the parties reach a settlement. Moreover, transferred MDL cases may remain in the transferee court for trial if the parties consent to it. One high-profile example of district court MDL is the opioid MDL, in which an Ohio district court judge is coordinating pretrial proceedings in more than 2,400 cases against opioid manufacturers and distributors alleging that the defendants contributed to the opioid epidemic by misrepresenting the risks of long-term opioid use and failing to monitor suspicious orders. Multicircuit Petitions for Review in the Federal Appeals Courts While federal litigation often begins in the district courts, Congress has provided for direct review of some agency actions in the federal circuit courts of appeals. For instance, petitions for review of certain agency actions under the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act must commence in the federal appeals courts. Because federal agency rulemaking frequently applies nationwide, a single agency action often gives rise to petitions for judicial review in several federal appeals courts. A federal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2112, governs those multicircuit petitions for review. Congress enacted the current version of Section 2112 in 1988. Before the 1988 amendment, the statute provided that if petitions for review of the same agency action were filed in multiple circuit courts, all proceedings were to be transferred to the court where proceedings were first instituted. This practice sometimes led to a race to the courthouse as litigants sought to give their preferred court of appeals the first opportunity to consider their claims. Following the 1988 amendment, multicircuit petitions for review are no longer automatically consolidated in the court of first filing. Instead, the statute provides that if petitions ittps://Crsreports.congress.gt

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