The clerk’s nightmare that is In re: Imprelis Herbicide Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2284, surely tops the bill for the September 27 oral argument in Philadelphia.  According to the Panel, that proceeding encompasses 45 actions in 18 courts.  The competing motions and responses are little less extensive.  Even defendant duPont hasn’t settled on a single district, favoring Minnesota, but–shockingly–amenable to Delaware.

Plaintiffs are predictably more scattered in their views.  The several camps are generally focused on the following possibilities:

• Delaware: Labaton filed the initial motion seeking consolidation in Delaware, then acceded to New Jersey and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in its reply.  Chimicles, Lieff Cabraser, Berger & Montague and others are on board.
• N.D. Ohio: Wolf Haldenstein, Climaco Wilcox and others filed the second motion, seeking consolidation in the Northern District of Ohio.  They were followed by a slew of other midwestern plaintiffs, some of whom seek assignment to other judges in that district.
• Minnesota: Robins Kaplan seeks consolidation on its home turf.  Relatively few other plaintiffs join them, and several of those are amenable to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
• Indiana:  A relatively small group of plaintiffs, led by Cohen & Malad, seek consolidation in the Southern District of Indiana.
• E.D. Pa.: Another relatively small group of plaintiffs, led by Fox Rothschild, Weinstein Kitchenoff and Seeger Weiss, seek consolidation in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

There will be more to come as to this one as it develops.

Update:  It turns out that there should have been more to come immediately upon the initial posting of this preview.  I missed a submission from Wilentz Goldman favoring the District of New Jersey (with Delaware as the alternative) and another favoring the Eastern District of Michigan (with the N.D. Ohio as the alternative).  Kudos to Mr. Lüthi and his staff for doing a better job of keeping these things straight than I apparently do.