Depo-Provera MDL Case Count History: What the Numbers Actually Measure

The verified count line

MDL 3140 began with 27 actions transferred by the JPML on February 7, 2025. The panel also knew of 41 potentially related actions, but a related action is not automatically a pending MDL action. The first monthly report after centralization, dated March 3, listed 78 pending and 78 historical actions. By July 1, 2025, the official report listed 435 pending and 440 historical actions. Those are the earliest clean public benchmarks for comparing the docket over time.

The next two verified points show the acceleration: 3,490 pending and 3,547 historical actions on April 1, 2026, followed by 5,830 pending and 5,916 historical actions on July 1, 2026. Between the cited snapshots, pending actions increased by 357, then 3,055, then 2,340. That arithmetic describes changes in a court database. It does not reveal how many cases arrived or left during each intervening month, and it should not be converted into invented monthly figures.

Pending and historical are different columns

JPML's report gives two numbers for each active docket. “Actions Now Pending” is the active inventory on the report date. “Total Actions (Historical)” is the cumulative number reported as having been filed in or transferred to the MDL. On July 1, 2026, those values were 5,830 and 5,916, a difference of 86. The difference can reflect actions that are no longer pending, but the aggregate report does not assign a reason to each one.

That is why it is unsafe to label the difference as wins, losses, settlements or dismissals. A case can leave an active count through dismissal, remand, transfer, consolidation, administrative correction or another procedural event. To characterize a specific case, a reporter must read that case's docket or the relevant court order. The JPML spreadsheet-like report is excellent for scale and trend; it is not a disposition ledger and does not report dollars paid.

Why the count rose so quickly

Centralization makes filing and transfer more visible and consistent. The Northern District of Florida authorized direct filing, established master and individual dockets, appointed leadership and a data administrator, and created threshold proof procedures. Those systems let many separately represented plaintiffs enter a common pretrial structure. Public attention after the 2024 French epidemiology study and the later FDA meningioma warning also forms part of the chronology, although a docket count alone cannot prove why any individual complaint was filed.

The court has simultaneously tried to test whether filed cases have basic documentation. Pretrial Order No. 17 required initial documentary proof of DMPA use and of an alleged meningioma injury, and later orders addressed deficient submissions. That screening work is an important counterweight to raw volume. A case appearing in the count has been filed; its presence does not mean the court has accepted its product identification, diagnosis, causation theory or damages.

What is outside this number

MDL 3140 is a federal proceeding. The JPML report does not purport to count coordinated state-court cases in Delaware or New York, cases pending elsewhere that have not been transferred, people who consulted a lawyer but never filed, adverse-event reports, or patients who used DMPA without alleging an injury. Adding any of those categories to the JPML total would produce a hybrid number with no single official definition.

The product scope also deserves care. The transfer order concerns DMPA products and named multiple defendants and theories. Online shorthand often calls every action a “Depo-Provera case,” but complaints can involve brand, authorized-generic and product-identification questions. The court's proof-of-use process exists partly because those details matter. A useful count therefore names its scope: federal actions pending in MDL 3140 on a specified JPML report date.

How to read the next report

A later pending total could rise, flatten or fall. A rise may reflect new direct filings and transfers. A decline may reflect dismissals, remands, resolved cases or data cleanup. None of those movements, standing alone, tells readers whether expert testimony survived Rule 702, whether a preemption defense succeeded or whether an agreement paid anyone. Court orders answer legal-status questions; monthly reports answer inventory questions.

For a defensible history, save the report URL, record its stated report date, and transcribe both columns. Do not rely on a search snippet that may display an older PDF, and do not interpolate missing months. This page uses four official snapshots and labels its last verification date. The clean conclusion as of July 1, 2026 is substantial federal growth to 5,830 pending actions—not a prediction about liability, timing or individual recovery.

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