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What an MDL is
Multidistrict litigation (MDL) is a federal procedure, created by 28 U.S.C. § 1407, that moves civil lawsuits sharing common questions of fact from courts around the country into one district court for coordinated pretrial proceedings. As of September 1, 2026 there are 166 pending MDLs holding 206,182 individual actions. Nearly every “mass tort” lawsuit you see advertised is one of them.
Who decides
The United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation is a panel of seven federal judges appointed by the Chief Justice. When lawsuits about the same product, event or practice pile up in different districts, a party moves to centralize them; the Panel hears argument and, if it agrees, issues a transfer order naming one district and one transferee judge. Each MDL gets a number, which is why this site keys every record to it.
What happens in the MDL court
The transferee judge manages discovery, rulings on expert evidence, and motions common to all cases. Plaintiffs are typically required to complete a plaintiff fact sheet describing their use of the product and their injury; the court and the parties then pick bellwether cases for trial to test how juries value the claims. Those bellwether verdicts, and the court's rulings on the science, are what drive settlement talks.
How cases end
Most MDLs resolve through a settlement program that individual plaintiffs opt into, administered by a court-appointed administrator with its own eligibility criteria and deadlines. Others end when the court excludes plaintiffs' expert evidence and dismisses the cases. Cases that neither settle nor are dismissed are remanded to their original courts for trial. Once the docket empties, the Panel closes it and it leaves the monthly report; our register keeps the history.
How to read this site
- The register is the full monthly report, ranked by actions pending, with each docket's trend.
- Lawsuit records add what the filings allege, the litigation's status, and who the court documents say qualifies, with sources.
- This month is the diff between the two most recent reports: new dockets, closed dockets, biggest movers.
- Settlements lists litigations with a settlement program or claims process, linking only to the official administrator.
Common questions
Is an MDL the same as a class action?
No. In a class action, one or a few named plaintiffs represent everyone in a defined class, and class members usually do not file their own lawsuits. In an MDL, each plaintiff has their own individual lawsuit; the cases are only centralized in one court for pretrial proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 1407. Many MDLs contain class actions among their individual cases.
Do I have to join an MDL to have a claim?
You do not join an MDL the way you join a class. If you file a federal lawsuit about the same product or event, the Judicial Panel transfers it into the MDL as a related action, or your lawyer files it directly in the MDL court. Whether you have a claim at all is a question for a lawyer, and limitations periods vary by state.
What does 'actions pending' mean on the JPML report?
The number of individual civil actions currently centralized in that MDL on the report date. It rises with new filings and transfers and falls with settlements, dismissals and remands. It is a count of cases, not of people, and it says nothing about the merits.
How does an MDL end?
Three ways, often in combination: a global settlement program that resolves most cases, dismissals after rulings on science or law, and remand of remaining cases to their home courts for trial. When the docket is empty or the Panel closes it, it drops off the monthly report.
Where does this site's data come from?
Every figure on this site comes from the Judicial Panel's monthly "Pending MDL Dockets by Actions Pending" report, published as a PDF on jpml.uscourts.gov on the first business day of each month, and re-parsed here each month. The current report is dated September 1, 2026.