Suppose you have a product liability MDL.

Individual lawsuits are arriving by the mailbagful.

You need a system to sort out which claims can proceed and which should be dismissed as a matter of law. What’s a judge to do?

On the one hand, you could order defendants to file motions to dismiss each of the hundreds of separate complaints and then start ruling on those motions one by one.

On the other hand, (more…)