Despite the increasingly fractious debate over common benefit fees in multidistrict litigation, appellate review appeared less likely after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this month punted on reviewing a controversial order in the Roundup litigation.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California, in a 2021 holding in the multidistrict litigation over Monsanto’s Roundup pesticide, reduced lead plaintiffs counsel’s scope of common benefit fees, which he called “totally out of control,” sending shockwaves throughout the mass torts bar. But the Ninth Circuit, in a five-page unpublished opinion on Nov. 3, found it lacked jurisdiction to review the order.
