Reeg
Lead plaintiff Holiday Shores Sanitary District is asking for a protective order and to file documents under seal in the days leading up to a Friday hearing on a series of discovery disputes that have plagued its proposed class action against Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC.
Madison County Circuit Judge William Mudge is set to hear arguments that could touch on a number of pending motions in the case.
Holiday Shores filed for the protective order July 13 in relation to issues regarding confidential parts of the testimony of Sherry Ford, Syngenta's head of media relations.
The plaintiffs object to Syngenta's designations of parts of Ford's testimony as confidential.
Holiday Shores asks for the protective order in order to have Mudge decide on their objections.
The plaintiffs also ask to file sealed documents related to the matter.
Holiday Shores seeks to lead an Illinois class of water providers who allege that atrazine made by Syngenta runs off farm fields and contaminates drinking water supplies that the plaintiffs must remediate.
Holiday Shores filed six nearly identical proposed class actions over atrazine contamination in 2004.
A nearly identical federal case centering on atrazine claims was filed last year by the City of Greenville.
None of the suits have been certified to date.
The motion for the protective order comes as Syngenta has also filed motions in recent days seeking to quash 100 subpoenas to non-parties in the suit.
Mudge set the July 15 hearing following a day-long closed document review with the parties in June.
Stephen Tillery, Christie Deaton and others represent the plaintiffs.
Kurtis Reeg, Michael Pope and others represent the defendants.
The two sides are also facing off in the Greenville case in U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of Illinois.
The Syngenta case pending before Mudge is Madison case number 04-L-710.