Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation — Judicial Business 2024

The Panel transferred 1,987 cases that were pending in 90 district courts to 31 transferee districts for inclusion in coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings with 73,583 actions initiated in the transferee districts. The Panel did not order transfer for 343 actions that were the subjects of 12 motions for centralization.

Forty-one motions to centralize were filed with the Panel, and 23 of these led to the creation of new multidistrict litigation (MDL) dockets. The 23 dockets were split among 10 “miscellaneous” litigation dockets (6 of them involving customer data security breaches), 6 antitrust dockets, 4 product liability dockets, 2 intellectual property dockets, and 1 marketing and sales practices docket. 

Since its creation in 1968, the Panel has centralized 1,271,402 civil actions for pretrial proceedings. By the end of fiscal year 2024, a total of 17,621 actions had been remanded for trial, 927,242 actions had been terminated in the transferee courts, and 326,539 actions were pending throughout 47 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.