Active MDLs in 2026: The complete list

There are 160 active federal MDLs right now. Most attorneys can name five. Maybe ten.

That gap — between what you know and what's actually pending — is where cases go unmatched. Revenue left on the table. Here's the full picture, pulled from the April 2026 JPML report.

The numbers that matter

160 active dockets. 48 transferee districts. Nearly 200,000 pending actions. And the concentration at the top is extreme — 22 MDLs hold 94% of all pending cases. The other 138 dockets split the remaining 6%.

That means a single overlooked MDL could represent thousands of plaintiffs. Your next intake call might be one of them.

The top 15 by pending actions

These are the biggest active MDLs in the federal system right now, ranked by case volume:

1. Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder — MDL-2738 — 67,580 pending actions — D. New Jersey
2. Davol/C.R. Bard Hernia Mesh — MDL-2846 — 23,749 pending actions — S.D. Ohio
3. Aqueous Film-Forming Foams (AFFF) — MDL-2873 — 15,213 pending actions — D. South Carolina
4. Proton-Pump Inhibitor (Nexium, Prilosec, Prevacid) — MDL-2789 — 11,322 pending actions — D. New Jersey
5. Hair Relaxer Products — MDL-3060 — 11,195 pending actions — N.D. Illinois
6. Social Media Adolescent Addiction — MDL-3047 — 10,000+ pending actions — N.D. California
7. Paraquat (Parkinson's Disease) — MDL-3004 — 6,476 pending actions — S.D. Illinois
8. Roundup (Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma) — MDL-2741 — 4,511 pending actions — N.D. California
9. Uber Sexual Assault — MDL-3084 — 3,291 pending actions — N.D. California
10. Ozempic/GLP-1 Receptor Agonists — MDL-3094 — 3,191 pending actions — E.D. Pennsylvania
11. Depo-Provera (Brain Tumors) — MDL-3140 — 2,098 pending actions — N.D. Alabama
12. NEC Baby Formula (Similac/Enfamil) — MDL-3026 — 740 pending actions — N.D. Illinois
13. Philips CPAP Recall — MDL-3014 — 621 pending actions — W.D. Pennsylvania
14. Acetaminophen/Tylenol (Autism/ADHD) — MDL-3043 — 441 pending actions — S.D. New York
15. Camp Lejeune Water Contamination — MDL-3950 — 2,458 pending actions — E.D. North Carolina

That's over 162,000 pending actions across just 15 dockets. Every one of them started with someone's intake call.

Dockets to watch right now

Not all MDLs are equal. Here's where the action is in April 2026:

Fastest growing — MDL-3094 (Ozempic/GLP-1) posted 130% year-over-year growth. Over 31 million Americans have taken these drugs. Bellwether selection expected mid-2026.

Biggest upcoming verdicts — MDL-3026 (NEC Baby Formula) has bellwether trials starting August 2026. State court verdicts already hit $60 million (Illinois) and $495 million (Missouri) in 2024.

Critical phase — MDL-3060 (Hair Relaxer) has Daubert motions on causation due this month. MDL-3047 (Social Media) started its first bellwether trial in February 2026.

New momentum — MDL-3140 (Depo-Provera) doubled in size over the past year. MDL-3043 (Tylenol/Acetaminophen) is poised to grow after HHS linked prenatal acetaminophen to autism in a September 2025 report — the FDA has been directed to update safety labeling.

Settlement money moving — MDL-2741 (Roundup) has paid over $10 billion in settlements. The docket keeps refilling. MDL-3014 (Philips CPAP) has a $1.1 billion settlement approved. Camp Lejeune has 408,000 administrative claims filed with the Navy.

The dockets you're not watching

The top 15 get the headlines. But 138 other MDLs are active right now — smaller dockets with 10, 50, 200 pending actions. Some are growing. Some have fresh bellwether rulings. Some match the exact fact pattern sitting in your intake queue.

Here's the distribution:

• 22 MDLs with 1,000+ pending actions — 94% of all cases
• 26 MDLs with 100 to 999 pending actions — growing dockets, many pre-bellwether
• 74 MDLs with 11 to 100 pending actions — early-stage, high upside
• 38 MDLs with fewer than 10 pending actions — new centralizations or winding down

The early-stage dockets are where the opportunity is. By the time an MDL hits the news, the lead gen firms have already priced you out. Getting in early — when a docket has 50 cases instead of 5,000 — is how you build a mass tort practice without spending $500 per lead.

Stop searching manually

Now imagine doing this every month. Cross-referencing JPML PDFs. Checking which dockets grew. Figuring out which ones match your current cases.

MDL Match does this automatically. Paste intake notes and get ranked matches against every active federal MDL in seconds. Semantic matching, not keyword search. Your client says "weight loss injection" and we match MDL-3094. They say "foam in my breathing machine" and we match MDL-3014.

One matched case pays for the entire subscription. A single Ozempic referral is worth $10K-$50K. A single NEC case, given recent verdicts, could be worth far more.

Stop searching manually. MDL Match screens your cases against every active MDL automatically.