Abstract:
A single accident may give rise to hundreds or thousands of lawsuits. Current law allows plaintiffs to file their suits in any state that has minimal contact with the accident or the parties; plaintiffs’ suits are therefore often scattered among several state or federal courts. When the suits are consolidated in federal court for determination of all pre-trial issues, the federal court must apply the choice-of-law rules of the state in which each plaintiff originally filed suit to every choice-of-law issue involving that plaintiff. This arduous task significantly taxes federal courts’ resources. This Article proposes that Congress federalize the choice-of-law inquiry in consolidated single-accident mass-tort cases by requiring a strict place-of-accident rule. The authors contend that the theory and practice undergirding the current choice-of-law regime is chaotic and indeterminate. They argue that federalization of a strict place-of-injury standard provides the least intrusive and most effective way for Congress to foster uniformity, neutrality, determinacy, and efficiency in resolving these cases.