Lexecon Inc. et al. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach et al. (523 U.S. 26)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 3, 1998 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 523 U.S. 26 · 118 S. Ct. 956
- Decided
- March 3, 1998
- Term
- October Term 1997
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. Title 28 U. S. C. § 1407(a) authorizes the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to transfer civil actions with common issues of fact “to any district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings,” but imposes a duty on the Panel to remand any such action to the original district “at or before the conclusion of such pretrial proceedings.” Ibid. The issue here is whether a district court conducting such “pretrial proceedings” may invoke § 1404(a) to assign a transferred case to itself for trial. We hold it has no such authority. I In 1992, petitioners, Lexecon Inc., a law and economics consulting firm, and one of its principals (collectively, Lexe-con), brought this diversity action in the Northern District of Illinois against respondents, the law firms of Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Leraeh (Milberg) and Cotehett, Illston & Pitre (Cotehett), claiming malicious prosecution, abuse of process, tortious interference, commercial disparagement, and defamation. The suit arose out of the firms’ conduct as counsel in a prior class action brought against Charles Keat-ing and the American Continental Corporation for violations of the securities and racketeering laws. Lexecon also was a defendant, charged with giving federal and state banking regulators inaccurate and misleading reports about the financial condition of the…
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