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The Long Arm Of Multidistrict Litigation, Andrew D. Bradt
The Long Arm Of Multidistrict Litigation, Andrew D. Bradt
Andrew D. Bradt
Nearly 40 percent of the civil cases currently pending in federal court—now over 130,000—are part of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL. In MDL, all cases pending in federal district courts around the country sharing a common question of fact, such as the defectiveness of a product or drug, are transferred to a single district judge for consolidated pretrial proceedings, after which they are supposed to be remanded for trial. But the reality is that less than 3 percent are ever sent back because the cases are resolved in the MDL court, either through dispositive motion or mass settlement. Surprisingly, despite …
Aggregation On Defendants' Terms: Bristol-Myers Squibb And The Federalization Of Mass-Tort Litigation, Andrew D. Bradt, D. Theodore Rave
Aggregation On Defendants' Terms: Bristol-Myers Squibb And The Federalization Of Mass-Tort Litigation, Andrew D. Bradt, D. Theodore Rave
Andrew D. Bradt
Although it is destined for the personal jurisdiction canon, the Supreme Court’s eight-to-one decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court does little to clarify that notoriously hazy doctrine. It does, however, significantly alter the balance of power in complex litigation. Bristol-Myers is a landmark case because it makes both mass-tort class actions and mass joinders impracticable in almost any state court outside of the defendant’s home states. With federal courts already hostile to class actions, plaintiffs who want to aggregate their claims will have to do so on the defendant’s terms: either on the defendant’s home turf or in …