When a pharmaceutical drug, medical device, consumer product, or toxic chemical injures thousands of people in similar ways, the federal court system uses a specialized procedural mechanism — multidistrict litigation, or MDL — to manage the resulting flood of individual lawsuits efficiently. If you have been injured by a product that is the subject of existing MDL proceedings, understanding how this type of litigation works is essential for making informed decisions about your participation and your expectations for the process.
MDL vs. Class Actions: An Important Distinction
The terms mass tort and class action are often used interchangeably by non-lawyers, but they describe fundamentally different legal structures. In a class action, all plaintiffs are consolidated into a single case and bound by the outcome — if the class wins a settlement, each class member receives a share calculated by formula. Individual damages are not separately assessed for each class member. Class actions work best when individual harm is modest and uniform, and when the primary goal is behavioral change or the vindication of a common legal question.
MDL is different. Each individual plaintiff retains their separate case and is entitled to individual damages based on their specific injuries. The MDL mechanism consolidates these individual cases in a single federal court for pretrial proceedings — coordinating discovery, resolving common legal questions, managing expert challenges, and in some cases conducting bellwether trials to gauge jury responses to representative cases. After pretrial proceedings, cases are remanded to their original districts for trial. MDL is appropriate when harm is individually significant and varies significantly among plaintiffs — a pharmaceutical drug that caused heart failure in some patients and stroke in others produces differently valued individual cases that cannot be homogenized into a class. The largest MDLs in history — asbestos, opioids, hernia mesh, PFAS chemicals, roundup herbicide — have each involved hundreds of thousands or millions of individual claimants with individualized injuries.
How Settlements Work in MDL Cases
Most MDL cases resolve through global settlements — the defendant agrees to pay a total sum into a settlement fund, and individual plaintiffs receive payments from that fund based on an allocation formula. The formula typically creates tiers based on injury severity, duration and extent of product exposure, and other factors that distinguish more serious from less serious individual cases. A plaintiff with cancer clearly caused by the product will receive more than one with a less severe diagnosis; a plaintiff with decades of exposure will typically recover more than one with minimal exposure. Navigating the allocation process — documenting your injuries thoroughly, ensuring you are placed in the correct tier, and challenging any allocation that undervalues your case — is where the quality of your individual attorney representation has the most direct financial impact.
Global settlement negotiations typically involve plaintiffs’ leadership — a committee of attorneys designated to negotiate on behalf of the broader plaintiff group — and the defendant’s counsel. Individual plaintiffs do not negotiate directly. Whether to accept a global settlement is a recommendation made by the plaintiffs’ leadership committee, but each individual plaintiff retains the right to reject the settlement, which in most MDL structures means opting out and proceeding to trial individually. This right provides important leverage in negotiations, even though the vast majority of plaintiffs ultimately accept global settlement terms.
Finding Reputable Representation
Mass tort litigation has generated significant advertising activity — television commercials, online ads, and mass mailers seeking to sign up potential claimants. Not all of this advertising comes from firms that actually litigate the cases. Some firms sign clients through aggressive advertising and then refer cases to other firms for a referral fee, retaining limited involvement in the actual litigation. Understanding whether the firm that signs you up will actually handle your case or pass it along is an important question to ask before signing any retainer. Firms that are actually involved in MDL plaintiffs’ steering committees — the leadership structures that drive the litigation — have the most influence over how cases develop and how settlements are negotiated. Asking prospective attorneys about their specific role in the relevant MDL provides insight into their actual depth of involvement.