Chapter § 4.03 Prevalence of Multidistrict Litigation

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Publication year: 2020

§ 4.03 Prevalence of Multidistrict Litigation

[1] Requests for Transfer

Since 1973, parties have filed over 2,500 motions to transfer actions under section 1407.²⁴ The number of motions peaked in 2009 with 121, but the quantity has faded considerably most years since then—parties filed only 56 motions in 2018. The number of motions filed yearly has not been at its current level since the early 2000s.²⁵ Even though the number of requests for section 1407 consolidation has started to decline, the number of actions the Panel centralized has increased the past two years. For instance, the number of motions filed in 2015 and 2016 was, respectively, 82 and 73; the number of civil actions the Panel centralized in those years was 427 and 375, respectively. In contrast, parties, respectively, filed 59 and 56 transfer motions in 2017 and 2018, and the Panel consolidated 615 and 710 actions in those years.²⁶ The individual dockets in the MDLs generally don’t comprise a huge number of cases. Of the active 248 MDL dockets as of September 2018, fewer than 60 have more than 100 pending actions and only a little more than 20 have 1,000 pending actions.²⁷

[2] Parties Are Finding It Tougher to Win Motions to Transfer Under Section 1407

While the rate at which the MDL Panel granted requests for section 1407 transfers was quite high at one point, that is no longer so. In the 1970s, the grant rate on new dockets (as distinct from tag-along cases) was low, approximately...