EAST ST. LOUIS - The City of East St. Louis, seeking more than $3 billion in fines from Monsanto for contamination from its operation in Sauget, plans to seek damages, too.
Monsanto moved to compel production of specific amounts in December, and the city responded that its experts would produce them in February.
East St. Louis city attorney John Baricevic, partner Grey Chatham, John Driscoll of Puerto Rico and Roy Mason of Maryland represent the city.
In 2021, they filed nine public nuisance citations against Monsanto and its affiliates Solutia and Pharmacia in St. Clair County Circuit Court.
They claimed manufacturing and disposal practices allowed toxic polychlorinated biphenyls to leak, leach, drift, emit, migrate, and otherwise release onto and into East St. Louis.
For each of 273 parcels the city owns, the attorneys sought a $500 fine for every day from 1973 to 2003 and $750 every day after that.
Monsanto removed the citations to U.S. district court on the basis of diversity jurisdiction, and Magistrate Judge Gilbert Sison consolidated the claims.
A party declined consent to magistrate jurisdiction, and the court clerk randomly assigned District Judge David Dugan.
Monsanto served interrogatories last July for amounts the city would seek for injury to land and natural resources, costs of remediation and abatement, unjust enrichment, and penalties.
The city objected that Monsanto requested trial preparations, mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories.
Monsanto counsel Adam Miller of St. Louis County moved to compel production on Dec. 19, stating refusal to provide basic information severely hampered his ability to mount a defense.
He claimed that without the information, defendants couldn’t tailor discovery, identify witnesses, prepare for depositions, or furnish experts with information they require.
He wrote that the city claimed it lost revenue through the inability to sell or rent contaminated properties at market value.
“Defendants are entitled to know the sales or rents the city was unable to make, the efforts the city allegedly undertook to make the sale or rent, the specific amounts the city was seeking, and if applicable, what specific amounts the city did receive in municipal income or tax revenue,” he wrote.
City counsel Mason responded on Jan. 2 that from the outset, the city sought fines based on ordinances and compensatory damages under common law.
Mason wrote that the first category was calculated with simple multiplication.
The city seeks $500 per day per parcel from July 1, 1973, to June 12, 2003.
It also seeks $750 per day per parcel from June 12, 2003, to the trial date, which Dugan set for Feb. 1, 2025.
Mason calculated the result at $3,111,517,500.
As for the category of damages, he claimed it would require testimony of experts whose reports are due Feb. 16.
Mason claimed Monsanto’s interrogatories and motion were premature because the case requires multiple complex analyses utilizing multifaceted approaches.
“Other than speculation or conjecture, the complex calculations are beyond the city’s expertise and the city is not prepared to make such speculations,” he wrote.
Monsanto moved last year to disqualify the city’s outside counsel due to conflict of interest.
It claimed the city agreed to pay a 40% fee or 45% in the event of an appeal.
Monsanto also claimed Baricevic should oversee outside counsel as city attorney rather than litigate for a share of the fee.
Dugan hasn’t ruled on it.