A jurisprudential milestone of sorts was recognized last month
when the ever rising tide of federal MDL filings surpassed 50% − that's right, over half – of all cases currently open
in the federal judicial system now are contained in multi-district
litigation. As reported, "the 248 MDL dockets
accounted for 52 percent of all pending federal civil cases at the
end of the last fiscal year." Here's a more detailed
review:
A year ago, civil cases concentrated in MDLs made up 47% of the
entire federal civil caseload. The change to majority MDL continues
a trend of growing concentration of the federal civil caseload in
MDLs which dates back to the early 1990s. . . . [T]he largest MDLs
comprise an even bigger share of the civil caseload than in past
years. At the end of fiscal year 2018, cases in large MDLs with
1,000 or more cases represented 46% of cases in the federal civil
court system, compared to 40% at the end of fiscal year 2017,
according to calculations based on
