Cite as: 523 U. S. 26 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
transferor district for trial, unless ordered transferred by the transferee judge to the transferee or other district under 28 U. S. C. § 1404(a) or 28 U. S. C. § 1406." Thus, out of the 39,228 cases transferred under § 1407 and terminated as of September 30, 1995, 279 of the 3,787 ultimately requiring trial were retained by the courts to which the Panel had transferred them. Administrative Office of the United States, L. Mecham, Judicial Business of the United States Courts: 1995 Report of the Director 32. Although the Panel's rule and the practice of self-assignment have not gone without challenge, see, e. g., 15 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3866, p. 619 (2d ed. 1986) (hereinafter Wright, Miller, & Cooper); Trangsrud, Joinder Alternatives in Mass Tort Litigation, 70 Cornell L. Rev. 779, 809 (1985); Levy, Complex Multidistrict Litigation and the Federal Courts, 40 Ford. L. Rev. 41, 64-65 (1972), federal courts have treated such transfers with approval, beginning with the Second Circuit's decision in Pfizer, Inc. v. Lord, 447 F. 2d 122, 124-125 (1971) (per curiam) (upholding MDL Rule 15(d), the precursor to Rule 14(b)). See, e. g., In re Fine Paper Antitrust Litigation, 685 F. 2d 810, 820, and n. 7 (CA3 1982); In re Air Crash Disaster at Detroit Metro. Airport, 737 F. Supp. 391, 393-394 (ED Mich. 1989); In re Viatron Computer Sys. Corp., 86 F. R. D. 431, 432 (Mass. 1980).
The second source of ostensible authority for Milberg's espousal of the self-assignment power here is a portion of text of the multidistrict litigation statute itself:
"When civil actions involving one or more common questions of fact are pending in different districts, such actions may be transferred to any district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings." 28 U. S. C. § 1407(a).
Although the statute limits a transferee court's authority to the conduct of "coordinated or consolidated" proceedings and
33
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007