Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation

The Panel, which was created by Congress in 1968, is a statutory national court under federal jurisdiction. The Panel is governed principally by Section 1407, which gives the Panel the authority to “centralize” related actions pending in different districts by ordering the transfer of all such actions to a single district for pretrial management. The statute provides that the Panel shall consist of seven Article III judges appointed by the Chief Justice, each of whom must reside in a different Circuit. The Panel is headquartered in Washington, D.C.