On August 14, 2026, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley entered Pretrial Order No. 22 in the federal baby food litigation. It runs two pages, and it asks the parties to do something blunt: write down which cases summary judgment is going to dispose of. Plaintiffs had until September 3 to give defendants a list of the cases alleging injuries beyond ASD and ADHD, and the cases alleging injury from infant formula. The parties then confer and, by September 16, propose a date for a case management conference on next steps — and the joint statement due a week before that conference must include a list of the cases for which summary judgment, and partial summary judgment, will be granted. That clause is the order’s center of gravity. It is written in the future tense, and it is not phrased as a question. Meanwhile the panel keeps sending cases in: conditional transfer orders landed on the docket on August 14 and again on September 4. New claims are still arriving at a proceeding now sorting out which of the claims already there can survive.
What the order says
Pretrial Order No. 22 confirms what was discussed at the August 13, 2026 hearing. It sets four things in motion, and none of them are housekeeping:
- By September 3, 2026, plaintiffs give defendants a list of cases alleging additional injuries beyond the development of ASD/ADHD, and a list of cases alleging any injuries based on consumption of infant formula.
- The parties then meet and confer and, by September 16, 2026, propose a date for a case management conference to discuss next steps.
- One week before that conference, the parties file an updated joint statement that includes a list of the cases for which summary judgment, and partial summary judgment, will be granted.
- Separately, the plaintiff in VanOstrand v. Beech-Nut, No. 25-cv-2853, briefs federal-question jurisdiction by September 3; defendants respond by September 17; ten pages each, then the court takes it under submission.
Why that third bullet is the whole story
Courts ordinarily rule on a summary judgment motion and then the parties live with the result. Here the sequence is inverted. Defendants moved for summary judgment on May 1, 2026. The hearing, originally set for July 9, was moved to August 13 because of the court’s trial schedule. It was argued on August 13 — a fifty-five-minute hearing — and the order that followed the next day does not decide the motion. It asks the parties to identify the cases the motion will take.
…a list of cases for which summary judgment, and partial summary judgment, will be granted.
Read alongside the court’s February 27, 2026 order excluding plaintiffs’ general causation experts, the shape becomes legible. If the evidence that heavy-metal exposure from these products can cause ASD or ADHD has been excluded, then cases resting only on that theory have nothing left to try. The order is not deciding that question again. It is asking the parties to sort the docket by it.
Which is why the two lists matter
The categories plaintiffs were told to identify — cases alleging injuries beyond ASD and ADHD, and cases alleging injury from infant formula — are the categories the February ruling did not reach. A child with a different alleged injury, or a claim about a different product, is not in the same position as a claim that depends entirely on the excluded causation opinions. Identifying those cases is the first step in working out what remains.
What has not happened
Nothing on the public docket in this proceeding reflects a settlement program, a mediator, a settlement conference or a global resolution. There have been no bellwether verdicts. What there is, as of this writing, is a fully argued dispositive motion, an order directing the parties to name the cases it will dispose of, and conditional transfer orders still routing newly filed federal cases to San Francisco.
If you are a parent with a case
Our case page on the Toxic Baby Food lawsuit sets out what the claims allege, which brands and products are involved, and what we ask a family for on a first call. This is a point at which the specifics of your child’s claim — the diagnosis, the products, whether any injury beyond ASD or ADHD is alleged, and where the case was filed — matter more than the general direction of the litigation. Those are questions to put to the lawyer handling your case, and if nobody is handling it, they are questions worth asking someone. Court schedules move; the answer you were given in the spring may not be the answer now.
This article is general information about how these cases work. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney-client relationship, and no two claims are alike. If something here sounds like your situation, the useful next step is a conversation about the facts.
