Pennsylvania’s federal district courts administer 14 of the approximately 171 currently active MDL dockets—a little more than 8% of the nationwide total. Four of those involve products liability cases, which historically represent a significant portion of the overall MDL proceeding types and the category with the largest overall number of individual claims, both in the commonwealth and nationwide.

However, Pennsylvania’s MDLs are aging and have overall fewer cases pending in comparison to other MDLs. When looking at individual case statistics published by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML), Pennsylvania’s overall share of individual actions in MDL proceedings is less than one percent of the nearly 400,000 individual MDL claims nationwide. And those same statistics show that one MDL—In re Avandia pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania—has zero individual cases currently pending. As Pennsylvania’s MDLs age and the number of petitions to consolidate fall, will Pennsylvania maintain its share of MDL proceedings?

Nationwide MDL Trends—Fewer Programs, More Products Claimants

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]