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Jump to full article: United States Judicial panel on Multidistrict Litigation, 2009-09-10
Intro: Before the entire Panel: Plaintiffs in five actions pending, respectively, in the Southern
District of California, the District of Colorado, the Southern District of Florida, the Eastern District
of New York, and the Southern District of Texas have moved, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407, to
centralize this litigation in the Southern District of Florida.1 This litigation currently consists of
eleven actions: four pending in the Eastern District of New York, two in the Northern District of
Illinois, and one each in the Southern District of California, the District of Colorado, the Southern
District of Florida, the District of Maine, and the Southern District of Texas, as listed on Schedules
A and B.2
The briefing and oral argument on this Section 1407 motion largely centered on whether
three of the eleven actions – Eastern District of New York Caronia and McLaughlin and Northern
District of Illinois Cleary – should be excluded from centralized proceedings, thus limiting
centralization to the eight actions listed on Schedule A, in which only Philip Morris USA Inc. (Philip
Morris) and/or Altria Group, Inc. (Altria) are named as defendants. Philip Morris supports
centralization as so defined, as do moving plaintiffs in their reply brief. . . .
The following defendants responded in opposition to inclusion of McLaughlin and Cleary
in centralized proceedings: British American Tobacco (Investments) Limited, B.A.T. Industriesp.l.c., Lorillard Tobacco Co., Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Brown & WilliamsonTobacco Corp., and Liggett Group LLC. Philip Morris, which is the only defendant in Caronia, also
responded in opposition to inclusion of that action. . . .
We conclude that the District of Maine is an appropriate transferee district for pretrial
proceedings with respect to the eight actions listed on Schedule A. The earliest filed of the eight
actions is pending in that district, and that action is substantially more advanced than any of the other
actions. Moreover, Chief Judge John A. Woodcock, Jr., has the time and experience to steer this
litigation on a prudent course.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407, the actions listed on
Schedule A and pending outside the District of Maine are transferred to the District of Maine and,
with the consent of that court, assigned to the Honorable John A. Woodcock, Jr., for coordinated or
consolidated pretrial proceedings with the action pending in that district and listed on Schedule A.
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