EAST ST. LOUIS - Syngenta and Chevron, defending about 6,000 claims that weed killer paraquat caused Parkinson’s disease, allege that 590 plaintiffs disobeyed an order to produce evidence that would support their claims.
On Sept. 12 they asked Chief U.S. District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel to set a deadline for those plaintiffs to show why they didn’t comply with a discovery order she entered in February.
Their counsel Ragan Naresh of Washington wrote that after the deadline passed, Syngenta and Chevron would move to dismiss all remaining claims with prejudice.
Rosenstengel has dismissed more than 1,000 plaintiffs, almost all without prejudice.
A judicial panel in Washington consolidated paraquat cases from federal courts in many states in 2021 and assigned them to Rosenstengel.
Syngenta stands as paraquat producer, Chevron as former producer.
Rosenstengel selected plaintiffs for trials that could shape global settlement but two of them dismissed their claims as trial dates approached last year.
Rosenstengel entered an order in expressing concern about cases with implausible or far fetched theories of liability.
She directed the parties to identify plaintiffs who had no information on exposure to paraquat as opposed to different products.
She directed them to identify plaintiffs with no evidence of Parkinson’s disease, and to identify plaintiffs who claimed to have used it in a form that didn’t exist.
Hundreds of plaintiffs dismissed complaints last year but not enough to satisfy Rosenstengel.
In January, she ordered 25 plaintiffs to sit for depositions and serve subpoenas on third parties such as employers and paraquat sellers.
Nine of the 25 soon dismissed their claims and Rosenstengel selected replacements.
Nine more dismissed and she selected replacements.
In February, she expanded her attention from a small sample to the entire mass of cases.
She entered an order encouraging plaintiffs to serve any and all third party subpoenas they believed necessary to establish documentary proof of use or exposure.
She directed plaintiffs to upload to their questionnaire portals any evidence of use or exposure they hadn’t already uploaded.
She found this would provide plaintiffs an opportunity to better determine the strength of their claims as well as expose claims without merit.
Along with the 590 plaintiffs who didn’t respond to subpoenas, according to Naresh, responses to many subpoenas contradicted claims of paraquat use.
He posted three examples starting with Norman Wayne Taylor of Virginia who claimed he used paraquat only in connection with work for Tankard Nurseries.
Naresh claimed Tankard responded that Taylor was a foreman who managed field workers and he was never in charge of spraying any type of chemical.
He claimed Tankard identified individuals who performed spraying and confirmed that Taylor never did any of their work.
He claimed Tankard stated that foremen were never involved in chemical applications.
Naresh claimed plaintiff Gene Willits of Oklahoma alleged paraquat use in connection with work for Fort Cobb Schools from 1995 to 2015.
He claimed the response to Willits’s subpoena stated he was an employee but the district did not use restricted pesticides.
He claimed the district produced records of herbicide purchases from 1995 and 2015 and the list included 12 pesticides but not paraquat.
Naresh claimed plaintiff Larry Lipinski of Pennsylvania alleged that he purchased paraquat from New Castle Agway.
“New Castle Agway responded that we do not, nor have we ever, had a license to sell or sold Paraquat,” he wrote. “There are many more plaintiffs whose subpoena returns demonstrated that they did not use paraquat.”
Rosenstengel has initiated a process to select trial plaintiffs and hasn’t set a trial date.
As of Sept. 3 the panel that appointed her counted 6,959 cases with 5,891 active.