so multi-district litigation and class

action litigation are very similar um

but they are different and even lawyers

will confuse the two a class action is a

single case in which one person is

representing the interests of a larger

group of people sometimes hundreds or

even thousands of different people can

be represented in that one case

multi-district litigation however uh

would be numerous individual cases that

are brought together uh to resolve

common questions of fact or law so what

would an example of a class action be

let’s say if an insurance policy is

being adjusted uh One Way by an

insurance company and uh because the

insurance company is adjusting that

policy uh the exact same way for all of

its insured then they would be able to

be represented by a single person uh in

uh that class action in cases involving

personal injury however particularly

where you have questions of whether a

product uh is causing an in a particular

injury take for example uh Roundup and

non- hodkin Lymphoma those cases are not

welld designed for class action because

each

individual plaintiff must prove that his

or her cancer was caused by exposure to

Roundup and that involves a host of

different considerations that will be

specific to the plaintiff one person

cannot effectively represent the

interests of all those people in a

single case however there will be

questions uh in common to each of those

individual cases that that uh can be

resolved at the same time for example

the general question of whether Roundup

can can cause cancer U because that uh

question applies equally to everyone uh

courts see fit sometimes to establish a

multi-district litigation where cases

will be brought together for the sole

purpose of resolving those questions in

common before later being sent back to

their home jurisdictions for trial