## Facts

- FMC Corporation filed an antitrust action in the Northern District of Illinois against multiple defendants, including three German manufacturers.
- FMC also filed a related patent infringement action in the District of Massachusetts against a domestic defendant.
- The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred the Illinois antitrust action to the District of Massachusetts for coordinated pretrial proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 1407.
- In the Massachusetts transferee court, the German defendants moved to dismiss the antitrust claims for lack of personal jurisdiction under § 12 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 22.
- The Massachusetts judge denied the motion, interpreting the Clayton Act’s “transacts business” requirement as satisfied by business anywhere in the United States, and certified the order for interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).
- The German defendants sought permission to take the § 1292(b) appeal in the Seventh Circuit (the circuit of the transferor forum) rather than the First Circuit (the circuit of the transferee court).

## Issues

1. In an action transferred for pretrial proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 1407, which court of appeals has jurisdiction to hear a § 1292(b) interlocutory appeal from an order entered by the transferee district court: the transferor circuit or the transferee circuit?

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit denied permission to appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction.
- The court held that a § 1292(b) application must be directed to the court of appeals with ordinary supervisory authority over the district judge who entered the certified order—here, the First Circuit.
- Because it lacked jurisdiction, the court did not reach the merits of the Clayton Act personal-jurisdiction dispute.

## Legal Principles

- For § 1292(b) purposes, the proper court of appeals is the one that normally reviews the district court that entered the interlocutory order.
- After a § 1407 transfer, the transferee court functions as the operative district court for pretrial rulings; interlocutory review of those rulings lies in the transferee circuit.
- Routing interlocutory appeals to the transferor circuit would fragment appellate supervision of the transferee judge’s pretrial management and conflict with § 1407’s goal of centralized pretrial proceedings.

## Conclusion

In a multidistrict litigation transfer under § 1407, interlocutory appeals under § 1292(b) from certified pretrial orders must be taken to the court of appeals for the circuit in which the transferee district court sits, not the circuit where the action was originally filed.


FMC Corp. v. Glouster Eng'g Co., 830 F.2d 770 (7th Cir. 1987)