What does it mean for a federal case to declared ';Complex?';?

I understand what complex means, I want a definition of the term in relation to U.S. District Court. What does it mean to a case? What specific ramifications are there by being declared Complex?What does it mean for a federal case to declared ';Complex?';?
This sounds like a local rule distinction to me. Most federal district courts have local rules about the day-to-day operation of their court. A ';complex'; declaration may mean that, I dunno, it gets assigned to a magistrate or gets put on a different schedule calendar.


You can find the local rules for a federal district court by going to the court's website... it's usually in this form


http://www.XXY(Y).uscourts.gov


';xx'; is the two letter postal state abbreviaion for the state.


';y(y)'; is the one or two letter designation for the district. If your state has more than one district then it's probably a geographical term followed by ';d'; for district.


So: Northern District of Texas:


http://www.txnd.uscourts.gov


District of South Dakota


http:///www.sdd.uscourts.gov





Get the picture?





From there, you can find the district's local rules.





Are you sure that it was the COURT that labeled the case ';complex.'; Because ';complex litigation'; generally means high value, multi-party litigation that comes in federal court (compared to, say, slip and fall cases, or contract disputes involving small $$).


In addition, there are ';class action'; or ';mass tort'; cases that sometimes have their own rules (certification of a class, special notice, settlement, and discovery rules, etc.) that might make a case ';complex.';


Finally, if there are similar cases all over the country, they may be consolidated to one court for efficiency's sake -- this is called the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation -- or sometimes labeled ';MDL.'; Those cases have separate rules, where all cases throughout the country are sent to one district, either for discovery purposes, some other limited purpose (to get the cases ready for trial), settlement, or in rare instances, consolidated trial.What does it mean for a federal case to declared ';Complex?';?
Probably because there is a aspect of political correctness to it.