U.S. District Judge Christine O'Hearn of the District of New Jersey will take on her first multidistrict litigation under an order putting her in charge of 17 suits over alleged breaches of consumer data by Samsung.

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation opted to send the lawsuits to the District of New Jersey, even though many plaintiff lawyers suing Samsung wanted the litigation to be heard in the Northern District of California, and lawyers for Samsung asked for the cases to go to Nevada or New York.