Mass tort litigation, whether in the toxictort or products liability arena, begins almost instantaneously with large-scale exposure to a toxic substance or with the failure or recall of a product. The large number of potential plaintiffs exponentially magnifies the ordinary difficulties of litigation, and this is particularly true when the potential venue is not limited to one locale.

Plaintiffs lawyers will invariably file their cases in the venues they believe are most favorable for their clients, and the mass tort defendant will face defending itself in venues across the state. A defendant will in short order find itself facing duplicative discovery issues — including corporate representative depositions, expert witness depositions, document production concerns and written discovery — multiple and overlapping trial settings and the potential for conflicting court rulings on key legal issues. All of this will occur on different timetables and in different courts.

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