Court Opinion

ID: 9666981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:32:02.52878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:33.934938
License: Public Domain

JOHN MINOR WISDOM, Judge of the Panel
(with whom
EDWARD *1392WEINFELD and STANLEY A. WEI-GEL, Judges of the Panel, join, dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent.
“The objective of the legislation [28 U.S.C. § 1407] is to provide centralized management under court supervision of pretrial proceedings of multidistrict litigation to assure the ‘just and efficient conduct’ of such actions. . . . It is expected that such transfer is to be ordered only where significant economy and efficiency in judicial administration may be obtained.”1 (Emphasis added.) H. R.Rep. No. 1130, 90th Cong.2d Sess. 2, 3 (1968) U.S.Code Cong. & Admin. News p. 1899. Unfortunately, this decision of the Panel exalts centralized management over the just and efficiént conduct of certain important, distinctive groups of actions which may be referred to as the “non-fraud” eases because they have only a peripheral relation to the internal fraud of Equity Funding. The non-fraud cases include the trading or tippee claims, the claims by debenture holders against the underwriters, and the rescission claims. These actions have their logical situs in New York and there they are proceeding apace. To wrap them in a bundle with the different, massive, and slower-moving California litigation involving Equity Funding's internal fraud is certain to produce a significant loss in economy and efficiency in the judicial administration of the non-fraud actions.
The majority declares that since Equity Funding’s underlying fraud “actuates the entire litigation, ... it cannot be said that the alleged underlying fraud is entirely irrelevant or non-essential to the establishment of each of the stated cases”. (Emphasis added.) But the underlying fraud within Equity Funding-actuated only the action by the Securities and Exchange Commission against Equity Funding, the Chapter X bankruptcy, and the direct fraud actions brought against the company and its officers, directors, auditors, and accountants. Discovery in the fraud actions will require extensive investigation of conduct extending over many years. On the other hand, in the non-fraud cases the acts that caused the suits to be filed were not committed by Equity Funding’s officials and employees. In these cases the discovery relates to the tipper, tippees, brokers, underwriters, and their accountants, and the officials of the Bankers National Life Insurance Company and Liberty Savings & Loan Association. In each of these non-fraud eases the discovery will be directed to a short definite period — of about three weeks in the trading claims.
No one favoring the Southern District of New York as the transferee district has argued that Equity Funding’s internal fraud is “entirely- irrelevant or immaterial”. But that is not the test to determine whether there should be consolidated or coordinated pretrial administration of these cases with another class of cases. Even the existence of a common fact is not enough; the commonality must involve substantial factual issues. Transfer of all eases sharing a common question of fact to a single district deprives a litigant of his choice of forum, may increase his costs, and may entangle his action in slower moving actions involving a mass of unshared facts and many factual and legal issues irrelevant to the transferred ac*1393tions. “The basic question before the Panel in each proceeding looking to coordinated or consolidated pretrial is, then, whether the objectives of the statute are sufficiently served to justify the necessary inconveniences of transfer and remand.” 2 In re Concrete Pipe, 302 F.Supp. 244, 255 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit.1969) (Weigel, J. concurring). In the expository language of the House Report, the transfer must promote “significant economy and efficiency in judicial administration”. (Emphasis added.) I take this to mean that there must be a balancing of the advantages and disadvantages of consolidation or coordination by transfer; the relevance of a shared fact may initiate the measuring process, but the scales must weigh heavily (“significantly”) in favor of transfer in terms of a just, economical, and efficient administration of the transferred cases.3
The majority gives a once-over-lightly treatment to the statutory requirement that the transfer serve the convenience of witnesses. It is true that witnesses are usually deposed where they reside and that deposition judges may assist the transferee court. But when most of the witnesses live in and around New York, as they do in the non-fraud eases, it cannot be disputed that it is more economical and more efficient administratively to have those eases pretried in New York rather than across the continent in California. Moreover, the non-fraud parties will be inconvenienced if the trials of their cases are held back by the more extensive discovery required in the California cases. Of course, any party is inconvenienced if he is deprived of the forum of his choice and if his local attorney does not have an important role in the pretrial proceedings. That is inherent in transfers under Section 1407. This disadvantage may be offset in a particular case by the superior quality of lead counsel and liaison counsel, and perhaps, by a reduction in attorneys’ fees and other costs when these are pooled and divided among a number of litigants. Here, however, there is no off-setting benefit for the parties in the New York litigation: they do not lack able counsel and their expenses will be substantially greater if, as appears likely, the discovery in the California fraud cases will necessarily prolong the New York litigation. In short, the “convenience of parties and witnesses” is a statutory criterion for transfer that cannot be treated as cavalierly as the majority of the Panel seems to treat it.4
The “just and efficient conduct” of the actions is the most important of the statutory criteria. And, as the statute and congressional reports emphasize, the existence of a common fact is not enough to justify transfer of litigation to a single district; there must be a *1394showing that the transfer will produce “significant economy and efficiency of judicial administration”. Proponents of the motion to transfer all the cases to the Central District of California have shown that, on the pleadings, Equity Funding’s internal fraud is not “entirely irrelevant” to the non-fraud cases. But they have not shown that the transfer will significantly promote the just and efficient conduct of those actions which are not based on the Equity Funding’s internal fraud.
Trading or Tippee Claims
The primary purpose of Section 1407 is the efficient employment of limited judicial resources. This conservation of judicial energy operates in the interest of the just and efficient conduct of the litigation, as far as the parties and witnesses are concerned, only when a transfer eliminates duplicative discovery relating to similar or identical issues in two or more cases. The factual and legal issues in the eases involved in the internal fraud of Equity Funding are so different from those involved in the trading cases that, with deference, I suggest that it is a misuse of the statute to put all the cases in one mixed bag.
Different times are involved. The trading cases arose from trading in Equity Funding stock during the three-week period from March 6, 1973, to March 27, 1973 (only two weeks, according to Salomon Brothers). This period began when Raymond L. Dirks, a New York securities analyst, started his investigation of Equity Funding stock. It ended when the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading in the stock and the newspapers had published the story. The primary fraud eases are based on the internal management of Equity Funding itself, going back at least to 1969 and possibly going back to 1964 when the company was organized.
The Equity Funding fraud will take years to unravel, the complex investigation will involve hundreds of witnesses, and pretrial discovery on the fraud issues will not even begin to get underway for a long time.5 Transfer of the trading cases to the Central District of California would complicate the litigation there besides delaying the trading cases interminably, to the detriment of all litigants.
Different places are involved. The focus of the fraud cases is California, the central headquarters of Equity Funding. The focus of the trading cases is New York, where the relevant documents are located, and where investors and agents for investors heard and acted upon the information Dirks circulated. Most of the trading cases are pending in New York. John W. Bristol & Co., Inc., John W. Bristol, The Boston Company, Inc., Boston Institutional Investors, Inc., Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co. (the “Bristol defendants”) and Fiduciary Trust Company of New York moved to transfer the trading cases to the Southern District of New York. Counsel for several parties in the primary fraud cases who joined in the motion for transfer of all litigation to California have recognized that, “On balance, this Panel may decide that the trading claims should be transferred to the Southern District of *1395New York for pretrial purposes”. Brief of Nelson, Liker & Marrifield for Wolf-son, Weiner, Ratoff & Lagin, p. 19. Plaintiffs and defendants in the New York trading or “tippee” cases unanimously urged that their cases be allowed to remain in New York. The only Illinois party to file a memorandum, and the plaintiffs in two of the three Pennsylvania cases agreed that the fraud claims in their cases should go to California and the trading claims to New York. Only one party, the defendant accounting firm of Haskins & Sells, argued for transfer of all cases to one district — and this defendant contended that the single district should be New York, not California.
Different defendants are involved. The fraud cases name as defendants Equity Funding’s officials and others involved in the company’s management. But neither Equity Funding nor the Trustee is a party in most of the trading cases. These cases are directed against Dirks, who lives in New York, and New York banks, investment advisors, and brokerage firms. The principal tippee defendants in these cases are large New York based institutional clients of New York stock analysts.6 The defendants in the trading cases, their officers and employees, and their books and records are located in New York. The people who did the work on the prospectuses and registration statements are in New York. The accountants for the defendants in these cases are in New York. In all of these actions it is to the convenience of the parties and the witnesses that the central situs be New York. It is significant that in the trading eases, the plaintiffs and the defendants are unanimous in their desire to stay in New York.
The legal issues on liability are entirely different. The differences are relevant to transfer under Section 1407 to the extent that the legal issues affect the factual scope of discovery.7 “The nature and quantum of proof of the alleged primary fraud [and of the non-fraud cases] necessarily depends on and varies with the legal theories of the cases.” Opinion, p. 1383. The primary fraud cases are predominantly class actions based on the liability of the defendants for fraud or the aiding or abetting of fraud in the management of Equity Funding. In the trading cases, which are separate and distinct claims for relief, the parameters in discovery are clearly defined: The defendants, strangers to Equity Funding, are charged with violating the federal securities law by trading on material inside information. Most of them received this information directly or indirectly from Dirks. The effect of the majority decision is to involve counsel in the non-fraud cases in a complex fraud case involving the internal management of Equity Funding when they are primarily interested in what Dirks and others did with his information. The attorneys for the plaintiffs in the trading cases will want to know whether the defendants acted on the inside information circulated about Equity Funding. Truth or falsity is not an issue. Materiality and non-public character are the only issues. See SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co., 2 Cir., 401 F.2d 833, 849. The details of how the fraud was accomplished and the identity of its perpetrators are irrelevant in the trading cases to both plain*1396tiffs and defendants. The attorneys for the defendants in the trading eases will argue that their clients did not have inside information, did not act improperly, or what was known to them (and Dirks, perhaps) was common knowledge on the street, and besides the alleged information should not have influenced a reasonable purchaser. The nonexistence of the bogus insurance policies or the unexplained absence of $25 million in treasury bills from the company’s bank box can hardly be contested. It is unrealistic and contrary to the objectives of Section 1407 to hold up the trading cases on the simplistic notion that sophisticated New York counsel in the trading cases will have to maintain the position that Equity Funding issued no bogus insurance policies. In short, although no attorney for a defendant in a non-fraud case is likely to make concessions against the interests of his client, it is a virtual certainty that the internal fraud, in which the trading defendants had no part, will never be a seriously disputed issue in the trading cases (or in the debenture and rescission cases).
The Panel’s decision in In re Penn Central Securities Litigation, 325 F.Supp. 309, 311 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit.1971), is compelling authority for separate pretrial treatment of the fraud and the trading cases. In that litigation the Panel initially transferred to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) 17 actions growing out of the financial difficulties of the Penn Central Transportation Company. See In re Penn Central Securities Litigation, 322 F.Supp. 1021 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit.1971). Subsequently, the Panel decided that 12 cases involving the sale by Goldman, Sachs & Company of Penn Central Transportation Company’s commercial paper should not be consolidated with the first 17 cases. The complaints in the second group of cases alleged misstatement and omission of material and non-public information by the seller, Goldman, Sachs & Co. These cases were transferred to the Southern District of New York. The Panel stated at 325 F.Supp. 309, 311 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit.1971):
The disputed question is whether these cases should be sent to Philadelphia for pretrial proceedings with the previously-transferred eases or transferred to some other forum. We conclude that the commercial paper cases are sufficiently different from the earlier cases that neither the convenience of the parties and witnesses nor the just and efficient conduct of the litigation would be served by their transfer to Philadelphia. These cases rest on a different set of primary facts than the earlier cases. They all turn primarily on the conduct and knowledge of Goldman, Sachs as a principal rather than the alleged insider trading, mismanagement and breaches of fiduciary duty within the Penn Central companies involved in the earlier cases. Of course, the full development of these cases may require investigation of factual areas covered in Philadelphia. Whatever efficiencies might result in these limited areas from transfer, however, would be outweighed by the need for separate treatment of the major portion of these cases and the difficulty which any transferee judge would face in attempting to meet such needs in an unduly large and complex group of cases. See, In re Antibiotic Drug Litigation, 320 F.Supp. 586 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit.1971).
The majority fears the possibility of conflicting, inconsistent class determinations if, despite their disparity, all the' cases in the present litigation are not transferred to a single judge. The fear is unfounded. While certain plaintiffs might eventually be class members in a fraud action and class members in a non-fraud action, dual membership of this sort will not lead to conflict or inconsistency.
The fears of the majority apparently stem from the provisions of Rule 23 which provide that judgment in a class action, whether or not favorable to the class, is binding upon all members of the *1397class. Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(c)(3). Thus, if the same claims are asserted in contemporaneous actions on behalf of overlapping classes, dual membership could result in conflicting, inconsistent judgments.
In cases where overlapping classes could result in inconsistent judgments in multidistrict litigation, class determinations should be made by a single judge. However, central administration of the fraud cases and the non-fraud cases for purposes of defining classes is not called for, since plaintiffs in the fraud cases and plaintiffs in the non-fraud cases assert different claims against different defendants.
The possibility of duplicative discovery on the underlying fraud issue may be minimized by practical measures which would not impair the just and efficient conduct of this litigation. Carefully limited discovery tailored to the peculiar requirements of the trading cases would be more efficient than general participation in the fraud suit proceedings. Such a limited program could easily be coordinated between the' New York and California district courts so as to cause minimal disruption to California proceedings or to the Equity Funding trustee.
The “mixed eases” present no problem. Several plaintiffs, rather than bring two separate actions, chose to combine their claims in a single action, stating a claim for relief against Equity Funding for fraud and an additional, separate claim against the “tippees” for not disclosing the fraud after they discovered it. In every instance, the complaint clearly distinguishes the conduct charged against the trading defendants from that against Equity Funding and its personnel. Thus the “mixed” cases do not accuse the institutional investor defendants of having themselves participated in the fraudulent scheme. These defendants are accused, in “pure trading” and “mixed” cases alike, of nothing more than selling stock in March 1973 on the basis of rumors emanating from Dirks during that month. The disparate claims joined in the “mixed” cases would invite severance in any circumstances, even if this were not complex litigation.
Debenture Actions
The claims by the debenture holders are on behalf of persons who purchased Equity Funding 5% percent debentures in reliance on a December 1971 prospectus and registration statement. • The litigation focuses on the managing underwriters, Bache & Co. and New York Securities Company, Inc., and the accountants for the prospectus. All are corporations based in New York. These actions concern the liability of third parties for allegedly misleading and false statements contained in the prospectus and registration statements. Again, the factual and legal issues (which bear on the scope of discovery) are entirely different from those in the actions based on Equity Funding’s internal fraud.
The first case brought by a debenture holder was Untermeyer et al. v. Equity Funding Corporation of America. It was brought in the Southern District of New York (73 Civ. 1444). The Untermeyer plaintiffs and others who have brought the debenture actions strenuously oppose transfer of their litigation and, indeed, argue that all the Equity Funding cases, except the Chapter X proceedings, be transferred to New York. In terms of the availability of evidence to proceed with the action, particularly in the pretrial discovery stages, the plaintiffs must move primarily against the underwriters and the accountants. With both managing underwriters and both accounting firms based in New York, the Southern District of New York is the most convenient forum for parties and witnesses and for the efficient conduct of pretrial proceedings.
It is significant that in the debenture actions, as in the trading cases, discovery against Equity Funding should be relatively simple. The Untermeyer plaintiffs assert that any discovery against Equity Funding promises to be relatively simple. No more than interrogatories and requests for admissions may suffice. Documents could be copied and, if necessary, inspected, in Illinois *1398and California without the need to transfer the eases there.
Moreover, in considering transfer, the distinction between the debenture holders as creditors, and the stockholders, as equity holders, should be maintained. The two classes have conflicting interests. See In re Penn Central Securities Litigation, supra. Plaintiffs were holders of short-term promissory notes, not bondholders.
Bache & Co. and New York Securities Company, the debenture underwriters, are in New York; Haskins and Sells, accountant for Equity Funding Life Insurance, the Illinois insurer that sold the bogus policies, has its main offices in New York; Seidman & Seidman, Equity Funding’s accountants, maintains its principal executive offices in New York and, to some extent, in Michigan.
Rescission Actions
The rescission cases are class action suits on behalf of former stockholders of Bankers National Life Insurance Company. Equity Funding merged with Bankers National Life in October 1971. As a result of this merger, Equity Funding acquired Bankers Life, a New Jersey based insurer, and its subsidiary, Equity Funding Life Insurance Company of New York, a New York based insurer with combined insurance in force of more than two billion dollars. Substantially all of the negotiations centered in New York. Substantially all of the corporate officials and witnesses are in New York. Bankers National Life and Equity Funding of New York are the two most valuable assets of Equity Funding Corporation of America. The litigation relates in part to fraud allegedly perpetrated upon the Insurance Commissioner of New Jersey in inducing him to approve the merger and to the violations of conditions placed upon the merger by the New Jersey Commissioner and by the Superintendent of Insurance of New York. Not a single witness resides in California. Discovery will focus primarily upon documents sent to the stockholders of Bankers National Life and upon other matters leading to the merger which occurred in New Jersey and New York.
Moreover, First National City Bank, a defendant in two of the rescission actions wants the action to remain in New York for a valid reason. Equity Funding pledged all of its ownership of Bankers National Life to First National as security for loans. The plaintiffs challenge the validity of the lien. First National points out that any discovery on this issue is foreign to the other actions and that discovery will center in New York.
The rescission cases have nothing in common with the fraud cases. Transfer of these cases to California will serve only to delay their disposition.
Conclusion
The scores upon scores of cases which for convenience, and despite their disparities, may be referred to as the Equity Funding Litigation involve widespread commercial frauds of a magnitude perhaps unprecedented in the history of the country. These frauds have had a substantial impact on many and diverse aspects of American business. To mix all of the distinctive groups of actions into one bundle because some of the litigation would not have occurred but for the internal fraud of Equity Funding’s officers and directors is not serving the ends of just and efficient administration of the litigation. The trading or tippee cases, the claims of the debenture holders, and the rescission cases belong in New York where most of the parties to those cases, material witnesses, and relevant documents are located. In those actions the most significant questions of fact are of no interest to the litigants in the fraud cases; the central issues of fact in the fraud cases touch the other groups of cases only peripherally. There is not enough duplicative discovery to justify transfer in the interest of judicial economy or savings in pretrial time to the parties, and witnesses.
Salomon Brothers, which acted as principal or broker in all of the disputed *1399transactions, is located in New York. John W. Bristol & Co., Inc., which acted as agent in over 95 percent of these securities transactions and which is alleged to have acted improperly on inside information, is resident in New York. Boston Company Institutional Investors, Inc., which is alleged to have possessed inside information and to have acted improperly on it, is an affiliate of John W. Bristol & Co., Inc., is resident nearby in Boston, and is alleged to have transacted much of the business at issue in New York. Raymond Dirks, who is alleged to have passed material inside information to Bristol and Boston, is resident in New York. Almost all of the documentation surrounding the transactions in question is in New York. While the institutional sellers involved as defendants are located in many places throughout the country (many in New York), almost all of them customarily engage in investment activities through advisors, banks, and custodians in New York. Furthermore, it is expected that most of these institutions will play a rather passive role in the litigation and that the issue of their liability will depend primarily on the activities of their New York investment advisory agents. The vast majority of the parties have already retained counsel in New York and the New York lawyers in question have already for some time been deeply involved in the preparation and pursuit of these proceedings. A considerable amount of discovery has already taken place in New York including both documentary discovery and oral depositions.
The majority opinion raises a disturbing question as to the Panel’s exercise of its statutory powers. Section 1407 and the Manual for Complex and Multidistrict Litigation came into being because of the brilliant performance of the voluntary Coordinating Committee in the Electrical Equipment Cases. 8 In a relatively short time the Committee settled 25,000 claims in 1900 actions filed in 36 districts. Centralized management was essential in that litigation. The successful administrative management of the complicated Electrical Equipment Cases and the general success transferee judges have had under Section 1407 do not, however, raise a presumption that all litigating cousins, no matter how distantly related and independent they may be, must live together under one roof and under the control of one manager during pretrial proceedings.
The transfer of multiple actions to a single district has its built-in disadvantages. Some litigants must sacrifice their choice of forum and the control of their case through their attorney in the interests of judicial economy and the multidistrict litigants as a group. Congress therefore fixed limitations on the authority of the Panel to transfer under Section 1407: “Such transfers shall be made . . . for the convenience of the parties and witnesses and [to] promote the just and efficient conduct of such actions.” The majority opinion virtually ignored the convenience standard and merely genuflected in the direction of the other statutory standards. Now we have a new judge-made standard for multidistrict litigation: If there is a background fact in one group of cases but for which there might not be litigation in another group or groups of cases, all the litigation must be consolidated or coordinated in the district most convenient for the pretrial of that “but for” fact. In effect, the majority has established the “but for” principle as the overriding criterion for transfer, notwithstanding the insignificance of the shared fact in pretrial proceedings in other distinctive groups of cases which will be held back by. entanglement with the “but for” cases. This is an exercise of judicial power that finds no support *1400in Section 1407 or in our previous decisions. I would hold that here there is no substantial commonality of facts raising significant factual issues. Transfer of non-fraud actions for consolidation or coordination with the fraud actions in the “but for” forum ignores the statutory standards and will defeat the purposes of Section 1407.9

. The statute provides: “(a) When civil actions involving one or more common questions of fact are pending in different districts, such actions may be transferred to any district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings. Such transfers shall be made by the judicial panel on multidistrict litigation authorized by this section upon its determination that transfers for such proceedings will be for the convenience of parties and witnesses and will promote the just and efficient conduct of such actions. il
The Senate Report states: “The main purpose of transfer for consolidation or coordination of pretrial proceedings is to promote the ends of efficient justice, but the convenience of parties and witnesses should also be a factor in determining whether such transfer should be made.” Sen.Rep.No.454, 90th Cong. 1st Sess. 2 (1967).

. Judge Weigel listed many factors relevant in the balancing process. The first factors listed were: “How many common questions of fact are there? AVhat is their nature?” Some of the other factors are: “Who are the principal witnesses in the cases and where do they reside? . . . AVill transfer result in a substantial saving of duplicative work? * * * Can many of the advantages of transfer be worked out by cooperation among counsel without transfer? . . . Will transfer hasten or delay progress in the cases?” In re Concrete Pipe Litigation, 302 F.Supp. 244, 255 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit.1969).

. “Transfer does not, of course, necessarily serve the interests of justice, efficiency, and convenience of the parties simply because common questions of fact are present. The crucial question remains whether the economies of transfer outweigh the resulting inconvenience to the parties.” Comment, The Experience of Transferee Courts Under the Multidistrict Litigation Act, 39 U. of Chi.L.Rev. 588, 594 (1972).

. The bill recommended by the Coordinating Committee for the Electrical Equipment Cases did not include “convenience of the parties and witnesses” as one of the standards for transfer. The Senate Judiciary Committee thought enough of this standard to add an amendment to the original bill, S. 159, because “although implicit in the bill, as introduced”, an amendment was desirable to make “it clear that the convenience of parties and witnesses should be weighed as a factor in determining whether transfer should be made”. Sen.Rep.No.454, 90th Cong. 1st Sess., 2.

. Judge Lucas’ Pretrial Order 2, entered August 1, 1973, in the California proceedings, makes it clear that perhaps several years will be consumed in the fraud cases in discovering matters which are irrelevant to the trading cases on any construction of the facts. Thus, Judge Lucas’ order in paragraph 9 outlines a series of complex problems relating to the discovery of computerized material, coordination between defendants’ and plaintiffs’ computers and the like. Judge Lucas directed Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee to submit to the court by March 1, 1974, a pretrial brief on these issues. There is no justification for compelling the trading case parties to have to await the completion of this mammoth task, on which Judge Lucas and the fraud case plaintiffs are now embarking, of discovering the details of how the Equity Funding fraud was perpetrated; there is equally no justification for imposing upon Judge Lucas the additional burden of supervising discovery of the substantially different issues raised by the trading cases.

. The plaintiffs in non-fraud cases allege that the “tippees” discovered the fraud, or rumors of the fraud, in March 1973 from Mr. Dirks and sold their stock before Mr. Dirks’ discovery became public. In no case is it specifically alleged that Bankers Trust, Chemical Bank, Bristol, Fiduciary Trust or other such institutional investor defendants knew of the fraud before March 1973.

. See In re Fourth Class Postage Regulations, 298 F.Supp. 1326 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit.1969) ; In re Public Air Travel Tariff Litigation, 360 F.Supp. 1397 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit.1973) ; In re Air Fare Litigation, 322 F.Supp. 1013 (Jud.Pan.Mult.Lit.1971). In tbe first case the common issue was the alleged unconstitutionality of the statute. In the two other cases the principal common issues were questions of law. See, Note, The Judicial Panel and the Conduct of Multidistrict Litigation, 87 Harv.L.Rev. 1001 (1974).

. The Panel is fortunate in having the services of three distinguished judges who served on the Coordinating Committee: former Chief Judge Murrah and Chief Judges Becker and Robson. These three also were members of the first Board of Editors of the Manual for Complex and Multidistrict Litigation (now known as the Manual for Complex Litigation) ; they continue to serve on the Board. Judge Lord has had vast experience as a transferee judge, notably in the Penn Central Securities Litigation. Only with great reluctance do I disagree with these veterans.

. “Unless there is substantial commonality of the fact questions presented, coordinated and consolidated proceedings can serve no purpose other than to produce chaos and to slow and complicate the pre-trial proceedings in the various actions.” Kaminsky, The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation: Emerging Problems and Current Trends of Decision, 23 Syracuse L.Rev. 817, 830 (1972). At least one commentator has noted that, “A dispute has arisen within the Panel, for example, on the substantiality of common factual questions sufficient to justify transfer”. Comment, 39 U. of Chi.L.Rev. 588, 594, n. 36 (1972).