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Sunday, July 22, 2007

Courts - Louisville federal judge named to head the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation

Andrew Wolfson of the Louisville Courier-Journal writes today:

[Louisville's U.S. Chief District Judge John G. Heyburn II] has been appointed by John Roberts, chief justice of the United States, to head a panel of seven judges that decides what to do when thousands of cases are filed around the country against the same defendant.

Known as the MDL panel, since it was created in 1968, the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation has considered more than 1,600 dockets involving more than 200,000 lawsuits and millions of claims, including hotel fires, airline crashes, asbestos litigation and securities fraud.

The panel decides which cases are consolidated and to what judge they are sent. Its decisions can make or break billion-dollar cases for corporate defendants and/or plaintiffs, based on what happens to them after they are transferred.

And the decision cannot be appealed.

"The MDL panel is omnipotent," says Evan Schaeffer, a St. Louis lawyer who has written extensively about it. "It can send cases anywhere. It can send them to Fargo. It can send them to Alaska. Think of it as a secret society of seven judges."

Heyburn, 58, who was appointed by President George H. W. Bush in 1992, applied for the position, which carries no additional pay. He will serve a seven-year term and supervise a staff of 27, including seven lawyers.

The panel meets every two months to hear oral arguments from lawyers for each side. Then it decides whether cases with similar facts should be combined and centralized to prevent inconsistent rulings by different judges and to avoid duplicative demands for evidence. * * *

Louisville trial lawyer Ed Stopher described Heyburn's appointment as "a huge plum."

Sheryl Snyder, another Louisville attorney, said it gives Heyburn "enormous influence" and is the equivalent of a cabinet level appointment in the executive branch.

The panel's decisions are designed to reduce the chaos of mass litigation, and they're designed to save time and resources – for the courts and both sides.

"We don't consider who our decisions might favor," Heyburn said. "We are a gatekeeper."

But lawyers fight fiercely to get their case before the right judge, in the right venue.

Attorneys suing a professional sports league, for example, might want the case sent to where the sport isn't particularly popular.

Lawyers for a corporation might want to keep cases close to its headquarters.

The panel's work initially was thought to favor plaintiffs by allowing their lawyers to pool resources, spreading the expense of litigation and "spreading damning documents turned up in discovery across the country," American Lawyer magazine has observed.

But lifting the burden of fighting the same motions in multiple courtrooms also has helped the defense. The magazine concluded it ultimately has proved more of a boon for defendants than plaintiffs because in several major cases, the judge to whom cases were sent threw them out.

That happened most notably two years ago when a judge in Texas dismissed potentially massive workplace litigation over the respiratory disease silicosis, ruling the cases were based on junk science. Silicosis is caused by exposure to dust common in mines, quarries and road construction.

Another federal judge in Ohio entered a wholesale order dismissing litigation against the diet drug Meridia, based on the argument of its manufacturer, Abbott Laboratories, that the drug's warning label protected it from liability.

More about the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation. This is from the MDL's introductory brochure:
The MDL Panel consists of seven sitting federal judges, who are appointed to serve on the Panel by the Chief Justice of the United States.

The multidistrict litigation statute provides that no two Panel members may be from the same federal judicial circuit. The current Chairman of the Panel is Judge John G. Heyburn II, who sits in the Western District of Kentucky. The remaining Panel members, in order of seniority on the Panel, are Judges D. Lowell Jensen (N.D. California), J. Frederick Motz (D. Maryland), Robert L. Miller, Jr. (N.D. Indiana), Kathryn H. Vratil (D. Kansas), David R. Hansen (C.A. Eighth Circuit) and Anthony J. Scirica (C.A. Third Circuit).

Judge Heyburn is from the 6th Circuit and Indiana's Judge Miller is from the 7th Circuit.

The law creating the MDL panel is found at 28 USC 1407.

Judge Heyburn succeeds the Honorable Wm. Terrell Hodges of the Middle District of Florida as Chairman.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 22, 2007 12:31 PM
Posted to Courts in general