Opinion ID: 593181
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: procedural history of the overall litigation

Text: 12 This case was first filed in early 1983 and has been before this court numerous times. The district court consolidated what had originally been four separate suits based on diversity jurisdiction (three from Pennsylvania and one from South Carolina), and certified a nationwide opt-out class action for compensatory damages under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) and a mandatory class action on punitive damages under Rule 23(b)(1)(B). In re Asbestos School Litigation, 104 F.R.D. 422 (E.D.Pa.1984). On appeal, we vacated the certification of the mandatory class action for punitive damages but, with some reluctance, affirmed the certification of the opt-out class action for compensatory damages. In re School Asbestos Litigation, 789 F.2d 996 (3d Cir.1986). 13 Since then, discovery and pretrial litigation has continued on a massive scale, and the district court has issued hundreds of pretrial orders, several of which have previously come before this court on collateral-order appeals or on petitions for mandamus. Among other things, we have rejected defendants' challenges to the district court's jurisdiction, In re School Asbestos Litigation, 921 F.2d 1310 (3d Cir.1990) (denying mandamus petitions seeking to require the district court to dismiss the class action complaints for lack of subject matter jurisdiction), and have refused to decertify the class action, In re School Asbestos Litigation, 921 F.2d 1338 (3d Cir.1990) (ruling that mandamus does not lie to force the decertification of a class action when interlocutory appeal is available). 2 14 After numerous delays, the case was nearly ready to go to trial in 1991. By September of that year, the district court had reformulated its original plan for the first phase of the trial, deciding to try only whether the defendants conspired or acted in concert to conceal information about the hazards of asbestos-containing products. Other issues, such as the level at which various kinds of friable asbestos are dangerous in school buildings, 3 whether statutes of limitations preclude certain claims, whether plaintiffs can identify particular defendants' products as present in their schools, and whether the defendants' products were defective, were reserved for later phases. In order to keep trial manageable, the district court elected to hold several Phase I trials, each involving about a dozen defendants. At a pretrial conference in early December 1991, the court set February 3, 1992, as the date of jury selection in the first of the Phase I trials. 15 In the meantime, over the course of several months, six of the current mandamus petitions were filed in this court. On January 17, 1992, after a motions panel of this court referred the mandamus petitions requesting disqualification to a merits panel for disposition, the district court stayed proceedings pending decision on the petitions. In an effort to clear roadblocks to trial in the event that he was not disqualified, Judge Kelly advised the parties to file immediately any other contemplated mandamus petitions. Following this invitation, two more petitions for mandamus were filed. We consolidated the eight petitions into three groups: (1) those relating to disqualification and the ex parte process of approving plaintiffs' use of settlement funds (discussed in Parts IV and V); (2) those relating to the district court's refusal to consider summary judgment motions relevant to Phase I on the ground of untimeliness (discussed in Part VI); and (3) those relating to the Phase I trial plan itself (discussed in Part VII). 16