Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation — Judicial Business 2022

The Panel transferred 2,520 cases that were pending in 90 district courts to 45 transferee districts for inclusion in coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings with 58,280 actions initiated in the transferee districts. The Panel did not order transfer for 65 actions that were the subjects of 10 motions for centralization.

Thirty-four motions to centralize were filed with the Panel, and 20 of these led to the creation of new multidistrict litigation (MDL) dockets. The 20 dockets were split among 8 product liability dockets, 4 intellectual property dockets, 2 antitrust dockets, 2 marketing and sales practices dockets, 2 “miscellaneous” litigation dockets (1 of them involving a customer data security breach), 1 common disaster docket, and 1 employment practices docket.

Since its creation in 1968, the Panel has centralized 1,117,428 civil actions for pretrial proceedings. By the end of fiscal year 2022, a total of 17,374 actions had been remanded for trial, 707,680 actions had been terminated in the transferee courts, and 392,374 actions were pending throughout 45 transferee district courts.

Tables S-19  and S-20 provide statistics on the cases transferred since the Panel was created, presenting data on the flow of cases into and out of the districts during the current fiscal year and cumulative since 1968.