High Court Rejects Inactive Docket, Adopts 'Antibundling' Trial Structure

LANSING, Mich. -- The Michigan Supreme Court has released an 'antibundling' administrative order that will prohibit asbestos cases from being tried in groups. In re: Proposed Administrative Order Regarding Asbestos-Related Disease Litigation, ADM File No. 2003-47 (Mich. Sup. Ct.).

In the Aug. 9 order, the high court rejected a proposal to adopt an inactive docket, opining that the method of trying cases one-by-one would still 'advance the interests of the most seriously ill asbestos plaintiffs whose interests have not always been well served by the present system,' Justice Stephen J. Markman said.

'The purpose of this order is to …