Research

How to Research Case Financing Opportunities

The single most important thing you can do prior to investing…

Learn about MDL’s

Each type of injury case, or more appropriately mass tort case, is different. In this section, we want to arm you with the tools that you need to do independent research on each type of case that you may be considering financing.

We like to look at case types as being in 4 stages:

1. Pre-MDL

In this stage, several lawsuits may have been filed across the country for a particular type of case. The lawsuits have not been consolidated into multi-district litigation (MDL).

2. MDL is Created

Here, enough lawsuits have been filed for a US district court who oversees MDL’s to step in and say “Hey, let’s consolidate all of these cases into one US district court.”

3. Bellwether Trial is Complete

Bellwether trials are real trials for a particular case type that help the plaintiff, defendant and the court gauge whether or not a specific case type has merit.

4. First Settlement or Verdict

The first settlements or verdicts have been reached – by this point, there is a lot of certainty that the defendants are looking at a big financial liability.

One thing to pay attention to is the “age” of the type of case. For example, there is a lawsuit against Phillips, a CPAP manufacturer, alleging faulty design that caused injury to CPAP users’ lungs. This case type recently appeared around June 2021 and would fall under #2 above, “MDL is Created”.

For an MDL to be created, dozens if not hundreds of lawsuits with similar merits must have been filed across the US and a joint panel of US district court judges must have agreed that a consolidated MDL panel of judges is the most efficient way to try the cases.

The “younger” the case type, the longer it will take to get repaid, as a general rule. The older the case type, the quicker the repayment, but less interest would be earned again, as a general rule.