Florida’s filings came back. Georgia’s kept climbing. Federal cases are taking longer to close.

A quarterly read of what court records show about personal injury and mass tort volume and timing. This issue covers Florida and Georgia state courts, all federal district courts, and every pending federal MDL.

The reform cut filings for a year. Then they came back higher.

HB 837 took effect on March 24, 2023. Lawyers filed ahead of it: auto negligence filings in Florida circuit courts went from 2,989 in February 2023 to 72,269 in March, about 24 times the normal month. Filings then fell to 968 in April and stayed near 1,000 a month through the summer.

The trough did not last. Florida averaged 2,688 auto negligence filings a month in FY21-22. In January through June 2025 it averaged 4,255, which is 58% higher. For the full year FY24-25, filings were 48,206 against 32,260 in FY21-22.

The courts have spent two years working through the March 2023 surge. Dispositions ran ahead of filings in 26 of the 27 months from April 2023 to June 2025. That gap is closing. In FY23-24, dispositions exceeded filings by about 3,190 cases a month. By the first half of 2025 the margin was about 480, and in June 2025 it was 124. Once new filings outrun closures, the pending inventory starts growing again.

Medical malpractice and products liability did not follow the auto pattern. Combined filings were 3,185 in FY21-22 and 3,337 in FY24-25.

No drop yet, and the inventory is growing.

Georgia’s tort reform, SB 68, was signed on April 21, 2025. Annual court data does not show a fall in filings. State Court tort filings rose from 26,047 in 2024 to 27,432 in 2025, up 5.3%, and are 29% above 2021. Superior Court tort filings rose 21% over the same period.

Georgia’s State Courts closed fewer tort cases than were filed in four of the last five years. Year-end pending tort cases reached 27,057 in 2025.

Source: Judicial Council of Georgia, Administrative Office of the Courts, caseload dashboards. Tort = auto, general, medical and product tort. Annual data, so the months after April 2025 cannot be separated yet.

One docket closed, and the rest are refilling the pool.

Actions pending across all federal MDLs fell from 417,521 in July 2024 to 179,268 in April 2025. Nearly all of that drop was a single docket: the 3M Combat Arms earplug MDL went from 237,907 pending actions to 41 in nine months.

Since April 2025 the total has risen 14%, to 204,977 across 162 MDLs in October 2026. J&J talc alone accounts for 69,340 actions, a third of everything pending.

The fastest growth over the last twelve months:

New dockets that joined the pending list this year include Dupixent (3180), Boston Scientific spinal cord stimulators (3181) and non-AFFF firefighter turnout gear (3191).

Federal PI cases are taking longer to close.

Of federal personal injury cases filed in 2015 through 2019, outside of MDLs, 61% closed within 12 months. For cases filed in 2023 through mid-2025, that share is 56%. Each of the last three filing years sits below every year from 2015 through 2022.

Federal filings moved in different directions by claim type. Motor vehicle injury filings outside MDLs rose 33% from 2019 to 2025. Medical malpractice fell 26%.

Three signals

• Florida’s crossover. If monthly auto filings pass dispositions for a sustained period, pending inventory grows again and time to resolution follows.
• Georgia’s first post-reform year. Monthly or 2026 data is the first real test of SB 68. Annual 2025 numbers mix three months before signing with nine after.
• Depo-Provera and the GLP-1 MDL. Depo-Provera more than quintupled in twelve months, and the GLP-1 docket grew 43%. Both are still early in their filing curves.

What this index counts

Coverage. Florida circuit civil courts statewide (all 67 counties), Georgia State and Superior Courts statewide, all federal district courts, and every MDL listed by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Each issue adds venues.

Sources. Florida Office of the State Courts Administrator, Statistical Reference Guide, Chapter 4, FY2017-18 and FY2019-20 through FY2024-25. Judicial Council of Georgia, Administrative Office of the Courts, Superior and State Court caseload dashboards, 2021 to 2025. Federal civil court records covering filings and terminations through June 30, 2026. JPML pending MDL reports, July 2024 to October 2026.

Federal timing. One record per case. MDL member cases are excluded. To keep a single mass filing from setting the trend, each filing year excludes any district holding 5% or more of that year’s non-MDL PI filings. A case counts as closed within 12 months when its termination date falls within 365 days of filing. The 2025 cohort includes filings through June 30, 2025, so every case in it has a full 12 months of follow-up.

What this index does not do. It reports volume and timing. It does not report who won, award amounts or settlement values, and it makes no forecast.

Known limits. Florida does not publish time to disposition, and FY2018-19 is not yet included. Georgia figures are self-reported by courts and annual. Fulton County’s split between auto and general tort changed in 2024, so this issue uses combined tort. MDL totals include non-injury dockets such as antitrust and data breach.

Criterica Intelligence · PI and Mass Tort Index · Issue 1 · October 2026. Built from public court records only.