BELLEVILLE – Associate Judge Kevin Hoerner plans to hold St. Clair County’s first civil jury trial in a year for six clients of Stephen Tillery, who contributed $11,100 to Hoerner’s campaign for appellate judge in 2018.
Hoerner has set proceedings to begin April 12, on Tillery’s claim that weed killer paraquat causes Parkinson’s disease.
Five of his six plaintiffs don’t live in St. Clair County.
Tillery sued Syngenta, Growmark, and Chevron for 11 plaintiffs in 2017.
Chief Judge Andrew Gleeson assigned the suit to former judge Vincent Lopinot.
Gleeson stood for retention in 2018, and Tillery gave his campaign $10,000.
In December 2018, Lopinot retired and Gleeson assigned himself to the suit.
Syngenta moved for substitution, which any party in an Illinois court can do once without cause if the judge hasn’t made a substantive ruling.
Gleeson granted substitution and assigned Circuit Judge Christopher Kolker.
Tillery had contributed $11,100 to Kolker’s campaign in 2018.
Chevron moved for substitution, Kolker granted it, and Gleeson appointed Hoerner.
Hoerner resolved a pending motion for transfer to a more convenient forum in 2019, by granting Tillery leave to conduct discovery about it.
Tillery added a 12th plaintiff but five dismissed their claims and one died.
He currently represents Carroll Rowan, Jerry Mills, Freemon Schmidt, Betty Schmidt, Ronald Niebrugge, and Mary Niebrugge.
Rowan lives in St. Clair County and the others live in Madison and Monroe counties.
Preparing for trial last December, Syngenta counsel Michael Nester of Belleville moved to sever Rowan’s claim and dismiss the rest.
Nester argued that a consolidated trial would likely confuse and overwhelm the jury.
He alleged differences among plaintiffs in frequency of use, how much they applied, and whether they were licensed to use it.
“Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder in the world, but has no known cause,” Nester wrote.
He claimed Freemon Schmidt sustained two head injuries and Rowan had a significant fall in which he hit his head and sustained facial fractures.
“A jury would surely struggle with separating and evaluating each claim based on its own unique evidence if they were to hear all such evidence at once,” he wrote.
Defendants also moved to bar seven witnesses with Parkinson’s disease who would testify that they applied paraquat in similar ways to the plaintiffs.
Defendants claimed any harm to them resulted from misuse of the product.
In January, Hoerner denied the defense motions.
On the motion to bar witnesses, he found the purpose of the testimony was to show that applications defendants contended were misused were common.
“A foreseeable use of a product does not constitute misuse, even if that usage is not intended by the manufacturer,” Hoerner wrote.
“Plaintiffs have indicated that they intend to seek leave at the appropriate time to include claims for punitive damages against defendants, which is not now before the court nor ripe for decision.
“Strictly for purposes of deciding the present motion, the court will assume that plaintiffs will be granted leave to pursue those claims.”
On the motion to sever, he found the claims of all plaintiffs arose from the same series of transactions.
He found the litigation should focus on products and conduct of defendants, not on relatively minor variances in individual circumstances.
On the forum motion, he found separate trials would inconvenience all parties.
“St. Clair County has the second highest rate of paraquat usage in the state, it has significant paraquat contamination throughout the county, and it had the third highest rate of increased Parkinson’s disease in the state,” Hoerner wrote.
“These uncontroverted facts give St. Clair County a very strong interest in deciding the core question this case presents: does paraquat cause Parkinson’s disease?”