A master complaint consolidates the common factual and legal allegations, with individual plaintiffs adopting it through a short form complaint identifying case-specific details such as product use and injury.
It is an administrative device rather than a superseding pleading in most proceedings.
Alternative Names:
Consolidated Complaint, Master Pleading
Why it Matters?
The master and short form structure allows common motion practice against the pleading without litigating thousands of individual complaints, which is its principal efficiency. Whether the master complaint supersedes individual pleadings or merely supplements them is contested and affects what survives remand. Courts differ, and the pretrial order establishing the structure should address it because the answer determines the operative pleading after the MDL concludes.
Frequently Confused with
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
How do individual plaintiffs adopt the master complaint?
Does it supersede individual complaints?
