MDL consolidates similar federal lawsuits before a single judge for coordinated pretrial proceedings, without merging them into one case.
Multidistrict litigation (MDL) is a procedure in the U.S. federal courts that lets many separate lawsuits sharing common questions of fact be transferred to a single district court and judge for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings.
It is authorized by federal statute (28 U.S.C. § 1407) and administered by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) — a panel of seven federal judges that decides whether to centralize a group of cases and where to send them.
Why MDLs exist
When a product, drug, or event injures many people across the country, hundreds or thousands of nearly identical lawsuits can be filed in different federal courts. Handling them separately would mean duplicative discovery, inconsistent rulings, and enormous cost.
Centralizing those cases before one judge streamlines discovery, avoids conflicting pretrial decisions, and conserves the resources of the courts, the parties, and witnesses.
What an MDL is not
An MDL is not a class action. Each lawsuit in an MDL remains its own separate case with its own plaintiff and its own claims. The cases are coordinated for pretrial purposes only.
If a case is not resolved during the MDL — through settlement or dismissal — it can be sent back (“remanded”) to the court where it was originally filed for trial.
How a case moves through an MDL
After centralization, the transferee judge manages common discovery, rules on shared legal issues, and often oversees a small number of representative “bellwether” trials that help the parties gauge how juries may react.
The outcomes of bellwether trials and the strength of the evidence frequently drive a global settlement framework that resolves large numbers of cases at once.
Ready to explore the actual dockets?
Browse all active MDLs with live pending-case counts.
Browse all MDLs