Mass Torts and Investment Capital: How Financial Backing is Reshaping U.S. Litigation Landscapes
Washington, D.C. – Mass tort litigation, a legal system designed to handle numerous related civil lawsuits simultaneously, has recently come under scrutiny for its effectiveness and economic impact. Critics argue that instead of offering fair compensation to victims, these legal battles mainly benefit trial lawyers and their financial backers, burdening the economy by draining resources from productive businesses. Multidistrict litigation (MDL), a key procedural approach within mass torts, was originally created to improve the efficiency of managing large clusters of federal lawsuits. However, these MDLs, which once represented 38 percent of the federal civil caseload … Read more