In the federal court system, when multiple cases are pending in several different district courts that involve common questions of fact, the law provides that the Judicial Panel on Multi-district Litigation (JPML) can transfer all of the federal cases to one federal judge, if centralization will serve the convenience of the parties and the witnesses and promote the just and efficient conduct of the litigation for pretrial purposes. See 28 U.S.C. § 1407. The JPML makes the determination on approving the coordination of the cases as an MDL and which district the MDL will be transferred to.
Currently, the District of Montana has one MDL case.