How an MDL Class Action is like Super Target
August 25th, 2009. By AbiK
There’s been a lot of talk about multi-district litigation, or MDL, lately. Thanks to the coverage of the Chinese drywall situation, the term “MDL” has shown up more in the news. But what is an MDL? Pleading Ignorance takes a look at MDL, with some insight from attorney Gary Mason—one of 50 lawyers who’s been assigned to work on the Chinese drywall case. So…
What is Multi-District Litigation (MDL)?
I like to think of it as going to a ramped up big-box retailer (like Super Target) vs. hitting a drug 
store, bakery, deli, grocery store and say, Old Navy, in separate trips. The consolidated Super Target just makes it easier to get what I want and need—that’s kind of the point behind an MDL.
MDL, or mulit-district litigation, allows for common issues that are part of many claims across multiple districts in a class action to be consolidated in one court for pre-trial proceedings. A judicial panel decides whether a case can be consolidated—so a group of lawyers can’t just decide on their own to consolidate things—it needs to be approved.
In the Chinese drywall case, Judge Fallon of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana appointed a Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (PSC) comprised of 12 attorneys who run the cases. According to Mason, “The PSC sets up subcommittees to cover topics such as discovery, briefing, legal issues, federal and state coordination and expert witnesses.”
In divide and conquer fashion, the lawyers working on a case can share in their efforts to obtain information as evidence, identify expert witnesses, etc. It’s just more efficient than each lawyer going out and basically repeating all the work his colleagues on the same case are also having to do.
Once the pre-trial proceedings are done, the cases are then remanded to the originating court for trial.
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