The United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (J.P.M.L. or the Panel) is a special body within the United States federal court system which manages

multidistrict litigation In United States law, multidistrict litigation (MDL) refers to a special federal legal procedure designed to speed the process of handling complex cases, such as air disaster litigation or complex product liability suits. Description MDL cases ...

. It was established by

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

in 1968 by , and has the authority to determine whether

civil actions - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil act ...

pending in two or more federal judicial districts should be transferred to a single federal district court for pretrial proceedings. If such cases are determined to involve one or more common

questions of fact In law, a question of law, also known as a point of law, is a question that must be answered by applying relevant legal principles to interpretation of the law. Such a question is distinct from a question of fact, which must be answered by reference ...

and are transferred, the Panel will then select the district court and assign a judge or judges to preside over the litigation. The purpose of the transfer or "centralization" process is to conserve the resources of the parties and their counsel, as well as the judiciary, thus avoiding duplication of

discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discove ...

and preventing inconsistent pretrial rulings. The Chief Justice of the United States, currently

John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including '' Nat ...

, appoints the members of the Panel, which is composed of no more than seven

United States federal judge In the United States, federal judges are judges who serve on courts established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. They include the chief justice and the associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit judges of the U.S ...

s serving on either district courts or courts of appeals. All panel members must be from different judicial circuits. In addition to their participation on the Panel, the members continue to serve as judges for the courts to which they were originally appointed. The Panel convenes hearings in various locations around the country to facilitate the participation of parties and their counsel. The Office of the Clerk of the Panel is located at the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, D.C. As of September 30, 2018, the Panel has centralized 1,722 dockets involving more than 673,000 individual cases. There have been 1,131 additional docket requests that were not centralized. These dockets encompass litigation categories as diverse as

securities fraud Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in lo ...

, drugs and other products liability cases,

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

infringement,

antitrust law Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust ...

violations, airplane crashes, employment practices and consumer data security breaches. The Panel also has the additional responsibility of centralizing multicircuit petitions for review: petitions for review of a government agency order or decision which are currently pending in two or more federal courts of appeals. The Panel has delegated this task to its clerk, who selects a court of appeals by lottery (i.e., spinning a drum and selecting a number at random). Before Congress created the random lottery procedure by statute in 1988, parties litigating in support of and against controversial government agency decisions would race to file in their preferred court of appeals in accordance with the traditional rule that the appropriate venue was usually where a petition for review was first filed.

Current composition of the panel

References

External links