## Facts

- Numerous Vietnam War veterans and family members alleged injuries (including cancers, miscarriages, and birth defects) from exposure to Agent Orange and related herbicides used in Vietnam.
- Defendant chemical manufacturers produced and supplied the herbicides to the U.S. military under federal procurement contracts.
- Hundreds of cases filed across the United States were transferred and consolidated for pretrial proceedings in a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Eastern District of New York; a class was certified under Rule 23.
- Federal-question jurisdiction based on federal common law was rejected on appeal; the litigation proceeded on diversity jurisdiction, requiring application of state substantive law.
- The court addressed conflicts-of-law questions in a pretrial order to determine what law would govern major issues (liability standards, government-contractor defense, punitive damages, and statutes of limitations) across a nationwide class with plaintiffs from many jurisdictions and exposure occurring overseas.

## Issues

1. In a nationwide diversity-based MDL/class action, which substantive law governs core product-liability issues when claims arise from many states and some foreign jurisdictions?
2. Under Klaxon and Van Dusen, how must a transferee MDL court apply the choice-of-law rules of the transferor forums?
3. Whether the choice-of-law methodologies used by the transferor states, when applied to the facts, converge sufficiently to permit use of a single set of governing rules on critical issues (including a government-contractor defense, punitive damages, and limitations periods).

## Decision

- The court held that, given the special circumstances of the litigation, the transferor states’ conflicts rules—properly applied—would select essentially the same substantive rules on the critical issues.
- The court concluded it could apply a unified body of “national consensus” substantive law, derived from common state-law principles, to core topics such as product-liability standards, a government-contractor defense, punitive damages, and statutes of limitations.
- The ruling set the governing-law framework for later proceedings; it did not resolve liability or damages on the merits.

## Legal Principles

- In diversity cases, a federal court applies state choice-of-law rules (Klaxon); an MDL transferee court applies the choice-of-law rules of each transferor forum (Van Dusen).
- Where federal common-law tort rules are unavailable, the governing rules must be grounded in state substantive law, even in litigation with strong federal interests.
- A court may identify and apply a “national consensus” of state substantive law when the relevant state conflicts methodologies and modern substantive doctrines materially converge for the issues presented.
- Choice-of-law analysis may consider multiple recognized approaches (e.g., Restatement (Second) “most significant relationship,” governmental-interest analysis, “better law,” and traditional rules) and determine whether they point to the same operative rules in the aggregate.

## Conclusion

The court determined that, although the case was governed by state law under diversity jurisdiction and transferor-state conflicts rules, the transferor jurisdictions’ choice-of-law approaches converged on common substantive outcomes for the key issues, allowing application of a unified “national consensus” state-law framework rather than fragmented state-by-state regimes.


In re \"Agent Orange\" Prod. Liab. Litig., 580 F. Supp. 690 (E.D.N.Y. 1984)