EAST ST. LOUIS – Two clients of Tor Hoerman’s firm in Edwardsville and 45 clients of firms in other states failed to answer questionnaires about exposure to weed killer paraquat, according to U.S. District Court Special Master Randi Ellis.
On July 17, Ellis recommended that Chief U.S. District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel dismiss all 47 cases from national litigation over claims that paraquat causes Parkinson’s disease.
She found defendants Syngenta and Chevron sent two overdue notices to their lawyers.
Rosenstengel presides over about 4,000 suits from many states by appointment of a judicial panel in Washington.
Plaintiffs claim paraquat causes Parkinson’s disease.
At the outset Rosenstengel ruled that plaintiffs must answer questionnaires about exposure within 30 days after entering a complaint on the docket.
Also at the outset, she appointed Ellis as special master, a sort of buffer between the sides.
Syngenta and Chevron brought her a list of 27 overdue questionnaires for clients of the Pulaski Kehrkehr firm in Houston.
It showed ten overdue clients from Nachawati Law in Dallas and eight from Miller Firm in Virginia and Mississippi.
It also showed Hoerman’s clients John Shaffer of Georgia and Jacob Kieffaber of California.
Shaffer sued Syngenta and Chevron in December, claiming his job with Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service exposed him to paraquat from 1978 to 1985.
His counsel Chad Finley of Hoerman’s firm wrote that paraquat was applied where Shaffer lived and worked.
Shaffer was also represented by Hoerman, Kenneth Brennan and Steven Davis of the Tor Hoerman firm and Paul Lesko and Brandon Wise of O'Fallon.
The same lawyers sued Syngenta for Kieffaber in December, claiming his landscaping job in California exposed him from 2006 to 2016.
Shaffer and Kieffaber received questionnaires but didn’t return them, according to Ellis.
She found that although defendants weren’t required to send a second notice, they sent it in an effort to avoid court intervention.
She found none of the 47 plaintiffs demonstrated good or just cause for their failures.
She recommended dismissing them without prejudice.