amicus curiae brief on his own behalf, supporting Lexecon's position and opining that the multi-district litigation statute had been misinterpreted to authorize "self-transfers" for more than twenty years. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Opinion of the Court In an opinion authored by Associate Justice David H. Souter, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and held that under the multi-district litigation statute, the transfer of an action for coordinated multidistrict pretrial proceedings did not authorize the transferree judge to transfer the case to himself or herself for the actual trial. Rather, the statute requires that when all pretrial proceedings are completed, the action must be sent back ("remanded") for trial in the district where it was originally filed. Therefore, the jury trial of Lexecon's claims against Milberg Weiss should have taken place in Chicago rather than Phoenix, and the verdict rendered in Phoenix was invalid. The Court also rejected Milberg Weiss's argument that even if the jury trial had taken place in the wrong venue, this was a harmless error that should not result in reversal. The Court concluded that trying a case in the wrong district, over a party's express objection, was not harmless. Justice Souter's opinion spoke for a unanimous Court, except that Justice Antonin Scalia did not join in a portion of the opinion that addressed the legislative history of Section 1407. Aftermath After the Supreme Court remanded the Lexecon case, it was transferred back to the Northern District of Illinois for trial. The case was retried before a jury in Chicago, which decided in favor of plaintiffs Lexecon and Fischel and awarded them $45 million in compensatory damages. The case then settled for a total of $50 million before the jury could decide whether to also award punitive damages. References External links United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court 1998 in United States case law Diversity jurisdiction case law Savings and loan crisis