The little-known U.S. Judicial Panel on Mulitdistrict Litigation is scheduled to hear arguments on Jan. 25 in Miami on one of the hottest issues in agriculture — claims of crop damage due to the weedkiller dicamba, said the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The panel will decide whether to centralize more than a dozen lawsuits filed in four states against the makers of dicamba, which would mean one court would oversee the cases.
“Lawyers for the farmers agree that centralizing the cases will conserve resources and time or all sides, and reduce the chances of conflicting rulings if several judges or districts were involved, but they disagree on potential venues, which include Little Rock,” said the newspaper. Chemical companies Monsanto, BASF and DuPont oppose centralization with the argument there are more differences than similarities in the cases so they should be heard separately.
The judicial panel was created by Congress in 1968 to sort through mass, complex litigation, said the Democrat-Gazette. “The procedure isn’t aimed at consolidating the cases into one but at putting them in one district for all pretrial proceedings and possibly for trial.” A ruling is expected in February, said the Little Rock newspaper. Most of the dicamba lawsuits seek class-action status. Arkansas had more complaints of dicamba damage than any other state in 2017.