Tillery
Reeg
The lead plaintiff in one of a series of class actions filed over the alleged contamination of water by the herbicide atrazine is asking Madison County Circuit Judge William Mudge to order the defendant in one of those suits to answer its discovery questions.
Holiday Shores Sanitary District on Tuesday filed a motion to compel directed at defendant Syngenta Crop Protection Inc.
It seeks answers to interrogatories that it claims were served on Syngenta in September 2010.
Syngenta has been fighting the proposed class action since its filing.
The pair has been embroiled in discovery disputes since last year as well.
Holiday Shores proposes to lead a class of water providers against Syngenta and other atrazine makers over alleged water contamination.
The six atrazine class actions were filed in 2004.
None have been certified to date.
The Syngenta suit has made the most progress since its filing seven years ago and discovery is on-going.
The motion to compel marks another shot in a contentious discovery process.
The April 12 filing asks Mudge to compel Syngenta to answer the plaintiffs' interrogatories.
Those discovery questions were sent to the defendants in September 2010, according to the motion to compel.
"Syngenta's unilateral failure to fully answer Plaintiffs' interrogatories seeking information about persons with knowledge of relevant facts and the subjects on which they are expected to testify is without substantial justification and an unreasonable failure to comply with the Illinois Supreme Court Rules regarding discovery," the motion reads.
The parties are due in Mudge's courtroom May 6 to argue over the date Syngenta retained an expert witness and what parts of his work and testimony may be privileged.
A Holiday Shores sanctions move over the expert witness matter is also pending.
Stephen Tillery, Christie Deaton and others represent Holiday Shores.
Kurtis Reeg is lead counsel for Syngenta.
The Syngenta case is Madison case number 04-L-710.
The atrazine suits are case numbers 04-L-708 to 04-L-713.