According to a case management order issued by U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon, 40 cases will be chosen for the Xarelto bellwether pool, with each side selecting 10 cases and an additional 20 chosen randomly.

According to Judge Fallon’s plan:

• Half of the cases will have originated in the Eastern District of Louisiana
• Seven from any states chosen by the plaintiffs
• Seven from any states chosen by the defendants
• Four from Mississippi federal court
• Two from Texas federal court

Xarelto Bellwether Trials

The only criteria for the selection of the seven cases by the plaintiff and the defendant is that each must have at least 20 eligible cases pending in the litigation. The parties have also been ordered to create a selection plan for the four cases that will be the first to go to trial. The first trial dates are expected to be between February and May 2017.

The Xarelto cases were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in December 2014, in an effort to combine resources to gather the facts and present them to a handful of juries in what are known as bellwether trials. Bellwether trials help to determine how juries may react to the evidence presented and can set the stage for future negotiations, potential settlements, and a quicker resolution of the litigation.

What is Xarelto?

Xarelto is an anticoagulant that is used to prevent blood clots from forming due to an irregular heartbeat, after hip or knee replacement surgery, and to treat deep vein thrombosis and to prevent clots from forming again. Doctors have been searching for many years for an anticoagulant that didn’t require the stringent scrutinizing that warfarin does, and thought Xarelto might be the answer, until it was discovered that the blood thinner had become associated with numerous severe bleeding events, and as of yet, there is no effective antidote for Xarelto.

A version of this article originally appeared at the CSS firm blog on December 7th 2015