1999 0616 - GOV (House) - Multidistrict, Multiparty, Multiforum Trial Jurisdiction Act of 1999 and Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1999, Howard Coble (R-NC)
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(p54-55) - Prepared Statement of John F. Nangle, Chairman, Judicial Panel on Multi- District Litigation and United States District Judge, Southern District for Georgia
(p55) - As of September 30, 1998, nearly 141,000 cases had been included in §1407 proceedings.
Approximately 140 transferee judges, as of February 1999, were supervising about 160 groups of multidistrict cases, each group composed of various numbers of cases, some totalling in the hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands, in varying stages of development.
This multidistrict litigation entails significant national legal matters, such as... sales practices of several insurance companies;
(p70-) - Prepared Statement of Brian Wolfman, Staff Attorney, Public Citizen Litigation Group
A large number of those cases-such as... the John Hancock insurance fraud case—have passed through the Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ("MDL") and were settled in the courts to which the Panel had transferred them (known as "transferee courts").
Duhaime v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 177 F.R.D. 54 (D. Mass. 1997)
Moreover, if there are individual issues at the liability phase of a class action-such as whether the plaintiff relied on the defendant's misrepresentations in the insurance fraud context-those issues will, if they can be maintained on a class basis, necessarily be decided in one forum.
In re Prudential Ins. Co. of America Sales Practices Litig., 148 F.3d 283, 295-96 (3d Cir. 1998)
House - Committee on the Judiciary- Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property
1999 0625 - GOV (House) - Risky Business in the Operating Subsidiary: How the OCC Dropped the Ball, Fred Upton (R-MI) --- [BonkNote]
(p100) - 12 As you know, however, insurance industry trade groups have filed suit in federal court challenging the OCC’s approval of the sale of fixed rate annuities by national bank operating subsidiaries.
See Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co. [VALIC] v. Clarke, 786 F. Supp. 639 (S.D. Tex. 1991); National Association of Life Underwriters v. Clarke, 761 F. Supp. 1285 (W.D. Tex. 1991).
While the lower court decision in VALIC upheld the OCC’s approval, this case presently is on appeal.
The final resolution of this litigation could result in a different outcome and possibly affect the Partnership’s ability to engage is such activities