IN RE PORK ANTITRUST LITIGATION

Background

Beginning in 2018, class and individual actions were filed against leading American pork producers. The complaints alleged a price-fixing conspiracy violating federal and state antitrust laws. The District of Minnesota began consolidating related cases for pretrial proceedings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42(a), which permits courts to combine actions involving common questions of law or fact.

In 2021, additional individual-plaintiff cases were filed in other federal districts. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation created multidistrict litigation number 2998 and transferred cases to the District of Minnesota under 28 U.S.C. § 1407. Multidistrict litigation allows related cases from different districts to be centralized for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings. The question before the court was whether the cases in case number 18-1776 and the cases in case number 21-2998 should remain under separate case numbers with coordination or be formally consolidated into one multidistrict litigation.

The Parties’ Positions

The Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs, defendants, and Commercial and Institutional Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs supported consolidation. The Consumer Indirect Purchase Plaintiffs argued that the cases had already been centralized and that all parties should benefit from multidistrict-litigation procedures. The transferred Direct Action Plaintiffs opposed consolidation. They argued that their cases were not structured around class-certification issues, had a different procedural posture, and could be delayed or prejudiced by existing schedules and orders developed for the other cases.

Court’s Analysis

The court explained that both multidistrict-litigation centralization and Rule 42(a) consolidation are intended to eliminate duplicative discovery, avoid inconsistent pretrial rulings, and conserve the resources of the parties, witnesses, and judiciary. District courts have substantial discretion over whether and how far to consolidate related cases.

The court concluded that one consolidated multidistrict litigation would be more efficient than maintaining two separate case numbers. The cases involved identical or similar factual and legal issues. Separate dockets would require separate scheduling orders, motions, filings, and protective orders, and would increase the risk of filing errors and inconsistent rulings. Consolidation would also allow the court to handle certain nonparty subpoenas and other pretrial matters more efficiently.

The court acknowledged that consolidation could create temporary case-management problems. It stated that the court could create separate tracks, address individualized discovery and motion issues, delay deadlines, stay orders, or separate cases again if necessary to prevent delay or prejudice. The court also directed the parties to identify existing orders they sought to modify or from which they sought relief.

Order

The court ordered that civil case number 18-1776 and its listed member cases be consolidated with civil case number 21-2998 and its listed member cases for pretrial proceedings into a single multidistrict litigation. The Clerk was directed to place the consolidated proceedings before Chief Judge John R. Tunheim and Magistrate Judge Hildy Bowbeer, transfer the documents from case number 21-2998 to case number 18-1776, and require future filings to be made in case number 18-1776.

The order also kept the caption of case number 18-1776 unchanged, redesignated that case as the multidistrict litigation authorized by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, preserved existing orders and deadlines for the parties to whom they previously applied, and provided rules for applying the order to later related actions. The ruling concerned pretrial management and did not decide the parties’ underlying antitrust claims.