You will recall that two years ago Volkswagen got in $14.7 billion worth of class action trouble for rigging software in its diesel cars to fake compliance with U.S. emission standards. The
We now learn that Volkswagen didn’t act alone.
Continue Reading Dieselgate — Antitrust Edition
A Question of Efficiency
Will quick review of a final judgment in just one of many cases that make up a large multi-district litigation bog the MDL process down — or make it work better?
Defense lawyers insist that consolidation of cases before a single district judge (by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation) changes
Roger Chadderdon's firm, Cataphora, won a breach-of-contract case against a bunch of lawyers who had hired the firm to provide "litigation support".
The lawyers served on the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee in a massive case that the Judicial Panel on Multi-district Litigation sited in New Orleans. See In re Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liabiity Litig.
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation lives mainly to decide whether to group cases from around the country into big mega-cases for pretrial work — motions to dismiss, discovery, summary judgment motions — and, if so, which district judge to send each of the mega-cases to.
But what happens when the "transferee" judge finishes the
Blawgletter wrote a paper class cert in antitrust cases for a Practising Law Institute program that went webinar last month. Read it here if you dare:
Where to file. From a plaintiff's perspective do you have favorite courts to file antitrust class actions. What are the undesirable courts from a defense perspective. Are there
The U.S. Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has already finished its work from the January 21st session in New Orleans.
See the results:
Granting Transfer
S.D. Fla.
In re Enfamil LIPIL Mktg. & Sales Prac. Litig., MDL No. 2222
N.D. Ga.
In re Camp Lejeune, North Carolina Water Contamination Litig., MDL No. 2218
The seven federal judges on the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation have issued the first two transfer orders from their September 30 session in Nashville.
The Panel sent cases relating to the recall of McNeil Consumer Healthcare and Johnson & Johnson medicines (think Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec, and Benadryl) for children and infants to the Eastern
British Petroleum now faces a two-front litigation war.
Yesterday, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation sent to the U.S. district court in New Orleans dozens of cases alleging personal injury, wrongful death, property damage, and other economic loss resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf
Today the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered centralization of cases relating to the oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico from the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon to the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans. U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier will oversee the sprawling MDL proceedings.
The Panel's order provides:
IN RE:
Blawgletter got back this morning (around 3:00 a.m.) from our first-ever trip to Boise. We saw a Great Many lawyers.
We and they had come to watch, and some of us to present, argument about what the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation should do with big cases.
In re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the