Illinois v. Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

DECKER, District Judge.

Five years ago the first of forty-nine cases was filed alleging that certain publishers and wholesalers of children’s, books had illegally conspired to eliminate discounts on sales of library editions to schools and libraries. Twenty-five of the cases were class actions. The remainder were non-class action cases.

The new Multidistrict Litigation Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1407, was invoked, and on October 17, 1968, the first series of *222cases was transferred to me by the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation for consolidated pretrial purposes, with the…