28
Opinion of the Court
Stephen M. Shapiro, Michele L. Odorizzi, and Kenneth S. Geller.
Jerold S. Solovy argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief for respondents Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach et al. were Ronald L. Marmer, C. John Koch, Jeffrey T. Shaw, Paul M. Smith, Thomas J. Perrelli, Arthur R. Miller, and Michael Meehan. Gerald Maltz filed a brief for respondents Cotchett et al.*
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.†
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1407(a) authorizes the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to transfer civil actions with common issues of fact "to any district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings," but imposes a duty on the Panel to remand any such action to the original district "at or before the conclusion of such pretrial proceedings." Ibid. The issue here is whether a district court conducting such "pre-trial proceedings" may invoke § 1404(a) to assign a transferred case to itself for trial. We hold it has no such authority.
I
In 1992, petitioners, Lexecon Inc., a law and economics consulting firm, and one of its principals (collectively, Lexecon), brought this diversity action in the Northern District of
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Regents of the University of California by Shirley M. Hufstedler, Harold J. McElhinny, and P. Martin Simpson, Jr.; and for the Washington Legal Foundation by Daniel J. Popeo.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Aerospace Industries Association of America, Inc., by Thomas J. McLaughlin and Mac S. Dunaway; for the American Council of Life Insurance et al. by Theodore B. Olson, Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., Phillip E. Stano, Craig Berrington, and Phillip Schwartz; for Eli Lilly and Co. by Charles E. Lipsey; for Owens-Illinois, Inc., by James D. Miller; and for Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. et al. by Joseph T. McLaughlin and Monroe Sonnenborn.
†Justice Scalia joins this opinion, except as to Part II-C.
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