A guide, with live counts from the courts' own feeds
Your product injury case was filed in an MDL: what happens now
Three products account for a steady stream of new federal cases: AFFF firefighting foam, sued over as MDL No. 2873 in the District of South Carolina; Bard implanted port catheters, MDL No. 3081 in the District of Arizona; and chemical hair relaxers, MDL No. 3060 in the Northern District of Illinois. A person injured by one of them who signs with a law firm usually ends up with a case filed directly into that court, with its own number and its own docket, alongside thousands of others. This page explains what that case is, why it will be quiet for long stretches, and which entries on its docket are the ones that concern you.
149 new product injury suits naming 3M, Becton Dickinson or L’Oréal USA as first defendant filed in federal court between September 20, 2026 and September 26, 2026, across 5 districts, counted from the district courts' own filing feeds.
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How the case runs
What an MDL is
When civil actions in different districts share questions of fact, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation may transfer them to one district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings, and each action is to be remanded to the district it came from at or before the end of those proceedings (28 U.S.C. § 1407(a)). The transferee court cannot keep a transferred case for trial on its own motion (Lexecon Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523 U.S. 26 (1998)). Many MDL courts also let a new plaintiff file directly in the MDL district rather than at home and transfer in, which is why the counts on this page come almost entirely from one district per product.
What the claim is
These are state-law claims: that the product was defectively designed, that its maker failed to warn of a risk it knew or should have known about, and negligence. The law of the state where you were injured or would otherwise have sued normally governs, and many MDL orders treat a directly filed case as if it had been filed in that home state for that purpose. The deadline to sue is that state’s statute of limitations for personal injury, usually two or three years, often running from when you knew or should have known the injury was linked to the product. Whether your case was filed in time is the first thing the defendants look at, so the date you first learned of the link matters.
What happens after your case is opened
An individual case in an MDL usually starts with a short-form complaint that adopts the master complaint, and the defendants usually answer the master complaint once rather than each case. The case management orders then require you to serve a plaintiff fact sheet or profile form, with medical records and signed authorisations, by a deadline measured from filing; a case that misses it draws a deficiency notice, then an order to show cause, and can be dismissed for failure to prosecute or to comply with a court order (Rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure). General discovery on the science and the defendants’ documents runs on the master docket for all cases at once (Rule 26), and the court picks a small number of cases as bellwethers to be tried first, sometimes consolidated for trial (Rule 42(a)). Your own case will show little of this: most filings go on the master docket, and the member docket carries only what concerns you.
How these cases end
Most individual cases in an MDL end in one of four ways. A global or inventory settlement, negotiated by lead counsel and the defendants and paid out by a claims administrator under a points or matrix system, in which each plaintiff decides whether to take part; a settled case is then closed by a stipulation of dismissal (Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii)). Dismissal by the court for a missed fact-sheet deadline or a limitations problem (Rule 41(b), or summary judgment under Rule 56). Remand to the home district for trial once pretrial proceedings are done (28 U.S.C. § 1407(a)). Or, for a handful of cases, a bellwether trial in the MDL court. The settlement amount is normally set by the program’s criteria, not by the judge, and the docket entry that tells you your case is over is the dismissal.
Know the day your docket moves
A firm with thousands of MDL clients communicates by newsletter, and the master docket moves every day with filings that are not about you. Your own case’s docket is quiet for months and then carries exactly the entries that are: a deficiency notice on your fact sheet, an order to show cause, a bellwether selection, a remand, a settlement order, or the stipulation that dismisses your case. CaseMagic Watch reads your member docket every day and emails you when a new entry lands, with the deadline that follows from it, so an order with your name on it does not wait for the next newsletter.
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Where they were filed
| District | New cases |
|---|---|
| D.S.C. | 66 |
| D. Ariz. | 58 |
| N.D. Ill. | 23 |
| D.N.H. | 1 |
| E.D. Wis. | 1 |
A case is counted once, on the date its opening filing was made, when the defendant the court typed into the caption is one this kind of case is brought against. Districts that publish no filing feed are not counted. No names are listed here on purpose.
Questions people ask before they start
Why has nothing happened on my case for months?
Because in an MDL the work happens on the master docket, where discovery, expert rulings and bellwether trials proceed for every case at once (28 U.S.C. § 1407). Your member case waits for that to finish. The entries that do land on it are the ones addressed to you, which is why they are worth catching the day they appear.
Do I need my own lawyer if lead counsel runs the MDL?
Lead counsel and the plaintiffs’ steering committee handle the common issues for everyone. Your own lawyer handles your fact sheet, your records, your deadlines and your decision on any settlement. A person can file in an MDL without a lawyer, but the same orders and deadlines apply.
Will my case go to trial?
Very few do. The court tries a small number of bellwether cases to inform settlement. If no settlement follows, the remaining cases are remanded to their home districts for trial one by one (28 U.S.C. § 1407(a)), which is years away for most.
How is the count on this page made?
It is the number of suits opened in the last 30 days that name 3M Company, Becton Dickinson and Company, or L’Oréal USA as the first defendant, read from the district courts’ own filing feeds and shown by district. It includes water-system suits against 3M filed in other districts, which are also sent to the AFFF MDL, and it is not a count of anyone’s clients.
CaseMagic is an independent service, not a law firm, and nothing on this page is legal advice. The rules cited are the ones in force as this page was written; check your court's local rules and any order in your own case.
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