Ever seen a judge invoke the All Writs Act? Doesn't happen everyday. And now the Eleventh Circuit is going to weigh in on its use in the 3M MDL pending in the NDFLA.
3M is fighting claims that it made defective earplugs that caused hearing loss. It’s been hit with some substantial jury verdicts in bellwether trials. Last summer, its subsidiary, Aearo Technologies, filed for bankruptcy, looking to stop other cases against 3M from going to trial. 3M has its own bankruptcy webpage and link to its pretty aggressive opening brief challenging the MDL proceedings here.
Judge Rodgers, presiding over the MDL, wasn’t having it. Citing the bankruptcy proceeding as an “undeniable” “threat to this court’s jurisdiction,” she enjoined 3M from attempting to freeze the MDL litigation and attacking her prior orders. And she did it using the ancient (and rarely invoked) All Writ’s Act, part of the Judicial Act of 1789. That Act allows federal courts to “issue all writs necessary or appropriate” to safeguard the integrity of ongoing proceedings and potential future proceedings before them, and to protect or effectuate their prior orders and judgments. There was good precedent allowing a District Judge to enjoin a litigant from challenging certain orders in bankruptcy court. This might be something civil and criminal litigants can use more often here in our district.
But a few weeks back the Eleventh Circuit stayed Judge Rodgers’s order without comment. (SDFLA's own Judge Barbara Lagoa was on that Motion Panel.) It'll be interesting to see what the Eleventh Circuit does with this and if other judges in MDLs take advantage of the All Writs Act in connection with collateral proceedings.
Judge Rodgers's order is below.
2 comments:
Can you speak up? I can’t hear you.
zzzzzzzz
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