Welcome as we enter the eighth year of And Now a Word from the Panel, a column that “rides the circuit” with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation as it meets on a bimonthly basis at venues around the country.
As we began 2020, the panel returned to its typical January destination of the state of Florida. But in what may have been an attempt to avoid Super Bowl crowds in its usual host city, Miami, the panel stayed a bit north and held its hearing session in Tampa.
Looking at the panel’s docket for January’s hearing session, the panel had only five new MDL petitions, just slightly more than the three petitions heard at the December session. Speaking of December, at that session, the panel created only one new MDL proceeding, while denying two MDL petitions.