32
Opinion of the Court
with other issues in the event the petitioners lose on the merits [at trial]." Id., at p. 3.
Trial on the surviving defamation claim then went forward in the District of Arizona, ending in judgment for Milberg, from which Lexecon appealed to the Ninth Circuit. It again appealed the denial of its motion for a suggestion that the Panel remand the matter to the Northern District of Illinois, and it challenged the dismissal of its claims for malicious prosecution and abuse of process, and the entry of final judgment in favor of Cotchett. Lexecon took no exception to the Arizona court's jurisdiction (as distinct from venue) and pursued no claim of error in the conduct of the trial.
A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed, relying on the Panel's Rule 14 and appellate and District Court decisions in support of the District Court's refusal to support remand under § 1407(a) and its decision to assign the case to itself under § 1404(a). 102 F. 3d, at 1532-1535. While the majority indicated that permitting the transferee court to assign a case to itself upon completion of its pretrial work was not only consistent with the statutory language but conducive to efficiency, Judge Kozinski again dissented, relying on the texts of §§ 1407(a) and 1404(a) and a presumption in favor of a plaintiff's choice of forum. We granted certiorari, 520 U. S. 1227 (1997), to decide whether § 1407(a) does permit a transferee court to entertain a § 1404(a) transfer motion to keep the case for trial.
II
A
In defending the Ninth Circuit majority, Milberg may claim ostensible support from two quarters. First, the Panel has itself sanctioned such assignments in a rule issued in reliance on its rulemaking authority under 28 U. S. C. § 1407(f). The Panel's Rule 14(b) provides that "[e]ach transferred action that has not been terminated in the transferee district court shall be remanded by the Panel to the
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