Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation — Judicial Business 2023

The Panel transferred 2,334 cases that were pending in 89 district courts to 35 transferee districts for inclusion in coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings with 80,357 actions initiated in the transferee districts. The Panel did not order transfer for 71 actions that were the subjects of 10 motions for centralization.

Thirty-five motions to centralize were filed with the Panel, and 22 of these led to the creation of new multidistrict litigation (MDL) dockets. The 22 dockets were split among 10 product liability dockets, 4 “miscellaneous” litigation dockets (3 of them involving customer data security breaches), 3 marketing and sales practices dockets, 2 antitrust dockets, 1 air disaster docket, 1 intellectual property docket, and 1 securities docket. 

Since its creation in 1968, the Panel has centralized 1,196,563 civil actions for pretrial proceedings. By the end of fiscal year 2023, a total of 17,473 actions had been remanded for trial, 761,953 actions had been terminated in the transferee courts, and 417,137 actions were pending throughout 46 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.