Chapter § 4.09 The Role of a Transferee Court

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Publication year: 2020

§ 4.09 The Role of a Transferee Court

[1] Powers of a Transferee Court

It is generally accepted that a section 1407 transfer is effective upon filing of the MDL Panel’s order with the clerk of the transferee district court.¹²⁶ At that point, the transferor court no longer has jurisdiction; instead, the transferee court has complete pretrial jurisdiction, including the authority to certify classes and order discovery.¹²⁷ Indeed, discovery has been cited as one of the primary reasons for the need of MDLs in today’s world: “Without the centralized control of an MDL transferee judge, the cost of duplicative discovery and e-discovery in each case consolidated as an MDL action for pretrial purposes would be a significant detriment to each case’s litigants and justice in America as a whole.”¹²⁸

A transferee court generally has the authority to decide any pretrial motions, including dispositive ones, such as motions for summary judgment, motions for judgment on the pleadings, and motions for judgment approving settlement or dismissal.¹²⁹ As Judge John Grady explained, “[i]f the transfer is to serve the legislative purpose of § 1407, the transferee judge must have the same authority that any pretrial judge has to enter orders that will ensure the relevance of the pretrial proceedings to the conduct of any trial that occurs after remand to the transferor court.”¹³⁰ Transferee judges also suggest to the Panel when to remand a case.¹³¹ Some relevant considerations for the transferee judge (and the Panel) when deciding whether actions are ripe for remand are whether common issue discovery has been completed, whether all common pretrial issues have been resolved such that the individual cases are ready for individual resolution, and whether the transferee judge believes that it is possible to achieve a global settlement if remand is deferred.¹³²

The decisions of a transferee court are generally given substantial deference by transferor courts. One scholar said it would be proper for a transferor judge to expand or build upon the orders of a transferee judge, but “it would be improper to permit a transferor judge to overturn orders of a transferee judge.”¹³³ He explained that, if “transferor judges were permitted to upset rulings of transferee judges, the result would be an undermining of the purpose and the usefulness of transfer under Section 1407 for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings because those proceedings would then lack the finality . . . requisite to the convenience of witnesses and...