Bellwether Settlements -Mass Tort Litigation Blog

Unlike class actions which empower judges via FRCvP 23, there is no rule defining the  roles and power of judges in consolidated multi district litigation.  28 USC 1407 offers minimal help other than transfer of cases to a single judge and management of the pre-trial stage of the litigation.  Zimmerman here works to creat order in the disorder. - gwc
Bellwether Settlements -Mass Tort Litigation Blog

By Alexandra Lahav

Adam Zimmerman has posted his new article "Bellwether Settlements" to SSRN.  The abstract is below:

This Article examines the use of bellwether mediation in mass litigation.
Bellwether mediations are different from “bellwether trials,” a practice
where parties choose a representative sample of cases for trial to determine how to resolve a much larger number of similar cases. In bellwether mediations, the parties instead rely on a representative sample of settlement outcomes overseen by judges and court-appointed mediators.

The hope behind bellwether mediation is that different settlement
outcomes, not trials, will offer the parties crucial building blocks to forge a
comprehensive global resolution. In so doing, the process attempts to (1) yield important information about claims, remedies, and strategies that parties often would not share in preparation for a high-stakes trial; (2) avoid outlier or clustering verdicts that threaten a global resolution for all the claims; and (3) build trust among counsel in ways that do not usually occur until much later in the litigation process.

The embrace of such “bellwether settlements” raises new questions about the roles of the judge and jury in mass litigation. What function do courts serve when large cases push judges outside their traditional roles as adjudicators of adverse claims, supervisors of controlled fact-finding, and interpreters of law?

This Article argues that, as in other areas of aggregate litigation, courts can play a vital “information-forcing” role in bellwether settlement practice. Even in a system dominated by settlement, judges can help parties set ground rules, open lines of communication, and, in the process, make more reasoned trade-offs. In so doing, courts protect the procedural, substantive, and rule-of-law values that aggregate settlements may threaten.