In re: Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litigation
- Joseph Spero
- 3:25-cv-07066
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In re: Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litigation: Judge Spero’s case was transferred to Alabama for coordinated pretrial proceedings.
The scheduled tag-along action involving Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases et al. and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Ilinois et al. is affected by the transfer to the Northern District of Alabama, where pretrial proceedings will be coordinated or consolidated.
What happened
In re: Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litigation concerns an action identified as sharing factual questions with other cases already being handled together in the Northern District of Alabama. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued a conditional order transferring the action there under a federal multidistrict-litigation statute.
The order lists a tag-along action involving Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Ilinois. It says the transfer would not take effect until the order was filed in the Alabama court, and that parties had seven days to oppose the transfer.
Judge Joseph Spero is identified in the supplied case information. The Panel’s order transfers the action to the Northern District of Alabama and assigns it to Judge R. David Proctor for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings; it does not decide the antitrust claims’ merits.
The detailed version
- In re: Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litigation · No. 3:25-cv-07066
- Joseph Spero
- Nov. 12, 2025
Background
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued Conditional Transfer Order 48 in this multidistrict litigation. The Panel stated that the action listed in the attached schedule appeared to involve factual questions common to actions previously transferred to the Northern District of Alabama. The Panel had originally transferred two actions there in 2012 for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings, and stated that 84 additional actions had since been transferred. With the Alabama court’s consent, those actions were assigned to Judge R. David Proctor.
Action Listed on the Schedule
The schedule identifies a tag-along action captioned “Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases et al v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Ilinois et al.” The opinion text uses “Ilinois” in that caption.
Ruling and Effect
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1407, the Panel ordered the scheduled action transferred to the Northern District of Alabama for the reasons stated in its earlier transfer order and assigned to Judge Proctor. The conditional transfer order would not become effective until filed with the clerk of the Alabama district court. Its transmission was stayed for seven days after entry; a notice of opposition filed during that period would continue the stay until further order of the Panel. The order addresses pretrial case management and does not decide the antitrust claims.
Judge Joseph Spero is the judge identified in the supplied case information, while the transfer order itself is issued by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation and refers to Judge R. David Proctor as the assigned judge in the transferee court.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.