Abbott Laboratories, et al., Preterm Infant Nutrition
The Abbott Laboratories, et al., Preterm Infant Nutrition litigation was centralized before Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer in the Northern District of Illinois in April 2022, consolidating claims that cow's-milk-based infant formula and human-milk fortifier products caused or contributed to necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in premature infants fed those products in neonatal intensive care settings. With 847 of 1,057 total filed actions still pending, this is a large, substantially intact docket — the small gap between pending and total filings indicates the litigation is still in an active growth and development phase rather than a residual or wind-down phase.
What will primarily drive duration and resolution risk in this docket is the strength and structure of the general-causation record: whether scientific and medical evidence can establish, to the standard required in federal court, that cow's-milk-based products meaningfully increase NEC risk in premature infants relative to human-milk-based alternatives, a question implicating complex neonatology and epidemiology. No bellwether trial has yet been completed in this proceeding, so the litigation's resolution path — settlement negotiation, further bellwether development, or contested trials — remains open and will likely take shape as the causation record matures through expert discovery.
This docket is a instructive example of an MDL still in its expert-discovery and causation-development phase at meaningful scale: unlike a docket that has already resolved most of its filed population, this one's near-total pending rate signals that the hardest structural questions — general causation and bellwether design — are still being worked out. Criterica Intelligence's platform tracks this phase distinction across every active MDL, flagging dockets where causation risk remains genuinely open rather than treating a large filing count alone as a resolution signal. A companion capital brief on this docket is available through Criterica Capital.
It consolidates claims that cow's-milk-based infant formula and fortifier products caused or contributed to necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a serious intestinal condition, in premature infants fed those products in neonatal intensive care.
With 847 of 1,057 total filings still pending, the docket is in an active growth and development phase rather than a residual phase — very little of the original filing population has resolved or been dismissed so far.
Whether scientific and medical evidence can establish general causation between cow's-milk-based products and NEC in premature infants to the standard required in federal court, a complex neonatology and epidemiology question still being developed through expert discovery.
No bellwether trial has yet been completed in this proceeding, so the resolution path — settlement negotiation, further bellwether development, or contested trials — remains open as the causation record matures.
Statistics shown reflect historical or illustrative model outputs derived from real case data. They are not predictions or guarantees of any individual outcome. Litigation results depend on facts, jurisdiction, judge, and counsel, and vary case by case. Model accuracy is subject to selection effects and changing legal dynamics.