Right this moment’s determination just isn’t from a drug or system case however raises an attention-grabbing MDL procedural difficulty we see every now and then: Plaintiffs attempting to leap the queue and keep away from the MDL course of. In re Paraquat Prods. Liab. Litig., No. 3:23-pq-02887, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12392 (S.D. Unwell. Jan. 23, 2025).
The case arrived within the MDL in an uncommon method. It was filed in state courtroom and included a nondiverse defendant. In state courtroom, the events “considerably accomplished” reality and professional discovery, together with a obligatory medical examination of the plaintiff, change of professional interrogatories, and depositions of reality and professional witnesses. Id. at *11. In spite of everything of that, Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the nondiverse defendant, and the case was eliminated to federal courtroom. Into the MDL it went.
However that was the place the case’s uniqueness ended. There was nothing uncommon concerning the case’s substantive authorized theories or operative information. Nonetheless, Plaintiffs requested that the MDL courtroom enter a scheduling order and trial setting only for their particular person case due to its superior procedural posture. The MDL courtroom didn’t go for it. “[P]rioritizing one case over 1000’s of others, when an expedited dispositive briefing and trial schedule advantages solely the shoppers of 1 legislation agency versus the broader Plaintiff pool, can be inconsistent with the purpose of consolidation and coordination below 28 U.S.C. § 1407.” Id. at *10.
Issues are shifting alongside within the Paraquat MDL, as this stuff go. The primary bellwether circumstances have been resolved on abstract judgment within the spring of 2024. Over the summer season, the courtroom recognized one other set of circumstances for restricted case-specific discovery; that was executed by the top of the 12 months; and the circumstances are actually set for extra discovery and “aggressive” scheduling orders for abstract judgment and Rule 702 briefing and trial. Id. at 7. The primary bellwether trial is scheduled for October 14 of this 12 months. In opposition to this backdrop, the MDL courtroom was disinclined to disrupt the method by letting one case leapfrog forward.
Plaintiffs cited circumstances for the overall proposition that the MDL courtroom has the authority to advance circumstances on completely different tracks. However simply because the courtroom can doesn’t imply it should or ought to. Given the posture of the MDL, the courtroom was “reluctant to overtake a fastidiously crafted case administration course of in order that one out of greater than 6,000 circumstances can race to trial.” Id. at *8. The one determination Plaintiffs cited permitting a single case to go by itself monitor introduced a singular authorized principle, one thing missing right here.
The courtroom acknowledged its duty “to handle the MDL to the advantage of all Plaintiffs and Defendants (not simply these named on this case).” Id. at *11. Provided that obligation, the courtroom couldn’t divert assets from the bellwether circumstances, that are “meant to be consultant of their friends . . . serving because the widespread springboard from which Court docket choices on substance . . . , process, and discovery can then apply to love circumstances and claims.” Id. (quotation omitted). Annoyed although they could be, these plaintiffs must wait their flip.