Despite having recently taken a break from docket-scouring, imPaneled found few fireworks in its backlog of recent Panel and lead counsel submissions.  We were most disappointed that the movant’s reply brief in MDL 2413, In re Frito-Lay Bean Dip Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation, scrupulously ignored Frito-Lay’s detailed claims as to their procedural gamesmanship.  Hopefully, Their Honors on the Panel will seek a substantive response when movant’s counsel appears before them in Dallas.

As to the lead counsel front, unless imPaneled’s detective work is not what it used to be, the only meaningful dispute to develop in recent weeks is one between Kaplan Fox and Horwitz, Horwitz & Paradis in a remnant of the proceeding formerly known as MDL 2374, In re Honey Production Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation.*  Evidently, the Paradis firm enlisted a plaintiff, who took his business to Kaplan Fox within a matter of months thereafter.  Before Kaplan Fox entered its appearance, the Paradis firm filed a related case with another plaintiff.  Kaplan Fox claims that the Paradis firm’s subsequent efforts to assume control of the litigation violated its ethical obligations to its former client and render it unfit to represent the class.  The Paradis firm disagrees and denies any wrongdoing.  Judge Chen of the N.D. Cal. will hopefully resolve the dispute in prolific fashion.

Now that the public will be spared electoral vitriol for another four years, perhaps both sides of the class action bar could fill the void with the kind of vitriol that appears on imPaneled’s pages.  imPaneled wants to see fire and brimstone rising from the dockets it searches next week.

* – The Panel denied the Paradis firm’s motion to consolidate several cases based on their relative paucity of common facts.