It’s an MDL World: The JPML issues its first orders of the year, creating two new MDLs

Centralization of claims in multidistrict litigation has become the new normal—so much so, that MDL proceedings now comprise more than 50 percent of the federal civil caseload. But has MDL practice in the United States peaked? Only time will tell. While the total number of MDL cases remains high (424,720 cases as of mid-February), the vast majority of these cases are concentrated in just a few of the more crowded MDL dockets. And as the annual MDL statistics in recent years show, the total number of new MDL petitions submitted, and granted, has been in decline. In 2021, for example, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation received 33 total MDL petitions, granting only 19—compared with 44 petitions (26 granted) the year before.

With the JPML’s first hearing of 2022 now in the books, it is clear that this trend has carried forward. Last month, the JPML ruled on the first three MDL petitions of the year, granting two and denying one. We briefly discuss these litigations and the Panel’s reasoning below.