How do I clear my browser’s cache? Your web browser's cache is a place where it temporarily stores information on your computer. The cache contains a copy of the items you have downloaded from the Web, such as web pages, images, sounds, and sometimes cookies. Keeping these items on your hard drive helps web pages load faster the next time you view them. The more files you can load from your hard disk, the faster your browsing speed. Occasionally, pages that have been modified since your last visit do not load with the current content; you end up seeing what was stored in the cache. Click here to read more about how to clear your browser’s cache.

Website updates:

     Attention: The Court is updating information on several aspects of the litigation, both by adding information to this News and Notes page and by issuing new minute entries and orders, which are being posted on the Orders page.  Please monitor both pages to keep current on these changes and new information.

INFORMATION FOR THE APRIL 19, 2012, MONTHLY STATUS CONFERENCE (4/12/2012)

     The next monthly status conference will be held before the Honorable Rebecca F. Doherty on April 19, 2012, beginning at 10:30 a.m. Central Daylight Time in Courtroom 2. Your Plaintiffs' Steering Committee has worked with the Clerk of Court to establish a dedicated telephone call-in system with greater flexibility and fewer limitations than the one used for the last conference. Except as noted below, any counsel with a case(s) before the Court may use the call-in system in lieu of being physically present in Open Court. If you have not already been contacted by Jennifer Hoekstra (an attorney in Richard Arsenault's office) concerning the use of the call-in system, please contact her for information rather than contacting the Clerk of Court's office.

     For the April status conference, the Court expects the conference will be completed in one day, on April 19, 2012. Only lead counsels, liaison counsel and anyone who has been notified they will be addressing the Court on an agenda item, are required to attend in person. The PSC members must attend either in person or by telephone. All other counsel are not required to attend, however, are permitted to attend the April 19 status conference, either in person or by telephone, if they wish. Unless specifically instructed otherwise, counsel will be free to leave after the status conference is adjourned.

SCHEDULING CHANGE

     Please be advised that the Court had set aside both June 21 and June 22 for the monthly status conference.  Due to a calendar conflict that has arisen, however, the June status conference will be limited to June 22 only.

COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE COURT

     This Court had issued instructions that counsel who wished to communicate with the Court should do so by contacting Magistrate Judge Hanna directly or Chris Guidry, the Court's Case Administrator.  However, now that Special Masters, the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, and the Defendants' Lead Counsel have been appointed, all counsel and parties are asked to contact the Court through their lead counsel (or, for plaintiffs' counsel, through their Steering Committee member), or through the Special Masters. The email address previously provided, Hanna_MDL_orders@lawd.uscourts.gov, is to be used only in al1 emergency, when other communications options have been exhausted. However, the noted email address can still be used for emergency filing where CTOs have not yet been fully processed by the clerk of court, and Chris Guidry or Evelyn Alexander should still be contacted for Clerk of Court issues or docketing issues.

     The Court has issued a minute entry describing the communications sequence that parties and attorneys should use.  It is posed on the Orders page.

ATTORNEY CONTACT INFORMATION

     In attempting to provide notice to counsel of record, it has come to the Court's attention that many attorneys' contact information is incorrect. PLEASE IMMEDIATELY CHECK your contact information as reflected in CMI/ECF. Attorneys may change their CM/ECF password and e-mail address only by logging into CM/ECF, Utilities, Your Account. All other information to be updated (firm name, address, telephone, and facsimile numbers) must be submitted via e-mail to: cmecf_helpdesk@lawd.uscourts.gov.