January 31, 2020 Update.

Today the court in the TDF cases pending in the San Francisco County Superior Court entered an order regarding the manner in which plaintiffs can file “complaints.” A complaint is essentially the lawsuit that is filed to initiate an action against the defendant. The complaint provides all of the factual allegations against the defendant and puts them on notice of the various claims or “causes of action” that are being asserted by a plaintiff against it. In a case such as this, where there are hundreds lawyers and plaintiffs, the case can become unwieldly if each firm files their own individual complaint with their own factual allegations. To avoid numerous individual issues and to streamline the litigation process, the court approved a process whereby plaintiffs can simply adopt a “master complaint.” The master complaint contains a uniform and thorough recitation of the facts of the case and contains a list of all the causes of action that could be asserted by individual plaintiffs. This order will make it easier for new plaintiff to file claims against the defendant.