Welcome to the latest installment of And Now a Word from the Panel, a
column which "rides the circuit" with the Judicial Panel
on Multidistrict Litigation as it meets on a bimonthly basis at
venues around the country.
As the panel heads to the nation's capital, Washington,
D.C., for its March 28 hearing session – which coincides with
the home opener for the Washington Nationals – the panel
considers a paltry four new MDL petitions, bringing to 10 the total
number of motions to create new MDL proceedings heard by the panel
in 2019, with four hearing sessions remaining. But the relatively
small number of new motions belies the otherwise burgeoning MDL
docket and the many actions subsumed within the vast MDL
landscape.1