Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP managing partner Phil Goldberg, who watched Tuesday’s proceedings, told Law360 in a Tuesday interview that the outcome will facilitate early analysis under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b), which forces plaintiffs counsel to certify their “factual contentions have evidentiary support or … will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery.”
“It’s something that is important to us, and important to making sure that MDLs can focus on real claims affecting real people, and are not going to be places where claims are stockpiled regardless of whether they can even support the fact that they use the product or have the injury that the MDL is dealing with,” Goldberg said.
Big business and BigLaw have fought vigorously to shape the MDL rule, with the campaign largely led by Lawyers for Civil Justice, which counts dozens of multibillion-dollar corporations and powerhouse law firms among its members.
Alex Dahl, general counsel of Lawyers for Civil Justice, reacted favorably to Tuesday’s vote, saying in a statement that “if employed appropriately, the new rule will prevent meritless claims from being asserted in the first place and also give courts a new management tool for addressing any such claims that are filed.”
