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Bellwether Trial Selection In Multi-District Litigation: Empirical Evidence In Favor Of Random Selection, Loren H. Brown, Matthew A. Holian, Arindam Ghosh

Akron Law Review

For decades, courts overseeing mass tort litigation have struggled with how to identify the right plaintiffs for early trials. These initial trials, often called “bellwether” trials, are intended to help the parties evaluate the merits of other cases in the same litigation. But a successful bellwether process depends heavily on the method by which the trials are selected. A process that all litigants regard as fair and that results in the selection of plaintiffs who are representative of the claims of other plaintiffs can help to facilitate the resolution of an entire mass tort docket, whereas a process that is …