Court Rejects Bid to Merge Pilot Flying J Suits

A panel of federal judges has denied a motion to consolidate a dozen federal fuel-price fraud lawsuits against Pilot Flying J truck stops.

“It is not possible to predict the contours of the litigation, and whether centralization will be beneficial, if and after the settlement is granted final approval,” the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in a ruling issued Thursday. “On the basis of the papers filed and hearing session held, we deny the motion.”

Pilot Flying J has been the target of an investigation into fraudulent diesel fuel rebates since April, when FBI agents raided the company’s Knoxville, Tenn., headquarters.

At a July 25 hearing in Portland, Maine, four of the 12 plaintiffs argued that consolidating the lawsuits, filed in several states would “preserve valuable judicial resources.”

Pilot and eight of the litigants asked the panel to defer its ruling to allow the Eastern District of Arkansas to consider final approval of the recently negotiated nationwide class settlement among several trucking companies and the truck-stop chain over fuel-price rebates.