Developing Best practcies to Improve Mass-Tort MDL-Bankruptcy Procedures
January 1, 2024
The defendants in several major MDL litigations have filed for bankruptcy. The status of the bankruptcies is unclear, and a final resolution may await Supreme Court consideration. In the meantime, the bankruptcies proceed with little guidance on procedures governing the treatment of the work done by tort lawyers in the MDL and how the hand-off from tort lawyers to bankruptcy lawyers is to be managed. The interaction between the two raises many unanswered procedural questions.
The Center has formed a team of experienced practitioners and judges to develop best practices, which provide the guidance needed to handle these actions more fairly and efficiently.
The guidelines and best practices address judicial estimation of the value of tort claims for purposes of determining voting rights and developing a reorganization plan. The Center is also studying whether a comparable procedure might be useful in mass-tort MDLs as a means to facilitate settlement.