Civil Procedure – MDL litigation – appeal

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U.S. Supreme Court

Civil

Civil Procedure – MDL litigation – appeal

An order dismissing a party form an MDL proceeding is appealable.

Because cases consolidated for MDL pretrial proceedings ordinarily retain their separate identities, an order disposing of one of the discrete cases in its entirety should qualify under §1291 as an appealable final decision. Section 1407 refers to individual “actions” transferrable to a single district court, not to a monolithic multidistrict “action” created by transfer. See Lexecon Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523 U. S. 26, 37. And §1407(a)’s language—“at or before the conclusion of . . . pretrial proceedings,” each transferred action must be remanded to the originating district “unless [the action] shall have been previously terminated”—indicates Congress’ anticipation that, during the pendency of pretrial proceedings, final decisions might be rendered in one or more of the actions consolidated pursuant to §1407. The District Court’s order dismissing the Gelboim-Zacher complaint was a final decision. The District Court completed its adjudication of petitioners’ complaint and terminated their action. Petitioners thus are no longer participants in the consolidated proceedings. Nothing about the initial consolidation of their civil action with other LIBOR MDL cases renders the dismissal of their complaint tentative or incomplete.

Reversed and remanded.

13-1174 Gelboim v. Bank of America Corp.

Ginsburg, J.

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