EAST ST. LOUIS - Paraquat producer Syngenta and former producer Chevron can’t enforce a discovery order against 431 plaintiffs who sued after the order expired, according to lead plaintiff counsel Sarah Doles of Florida.
On Sept. 30 she opposed their motion to set a deadline for 586 plaintiffs to produce evidence and to dismiss them with prejudice if they don’t produce.
“The motion’s erroneous and misleading factual basis coupled with the incendiary accusations against plaintiffs and their counsel warrant sanctions," Doles wrote.
She indicated they might have made mistakes among the other 155 plaintiffs.
Doles claimed Syngenta and Chevron wanted to make the case about plaintiffs’ counsel in an effort to delay and distract from their horrific conduct.
She claimed their failure to confer with plaintiff leaders or any individual counsel before filing the motion led to a conclusion that they wanted to publicly file a harassing motion.
Dole leads a committee of lawyers representing their own clients and clients of other lawyers who claim the weed killer causes Parkinson’s disease.
Chief U.S. District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel has presided over paraquat suits from courts in many states for three years by appointment of a judicial panel in Washington.
Rosenstengel selected plaintiffs for a series of trials to shape global settlement but two of them dismissed their cases in May 2023.
She entered an order expressing concern about implausible or far fetched theories.
She directed the parties to identify plaintiffs who had no information on exposure to paraquat as opposed to different products.
She also directed them to identify plaintiffs who claimed to have used it in a form that didn’t exist and to identify plaintiffs with no evidence of Parkinson’s disease.
Hundreds of plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed and Rosenstengel herself dismissed hundreds who abandoned their claims by failing to return necessary questionnaires.
She pressed harder and selected 25 plaintiffs for limited discovery.
Many of them voluntarily dismissed their cases and when she replaced them, some of the replacements voluntarily dismissed their cases.
In February she entered a case management order encouraging plaintiffs to serve any and all third party subpoenas necessary to establish documentary proof of use or exposure.
She set a deadline of March 11 for subpoenas.
Syngenta counsel Ragan Naresh moved for case management in September, claiming 586 plaintiffs hadn’t developed evidence as Rosenstengel ordered.
Doles responded that defendants failed to conduct a good faith investigation into their assertions and made baseless assumptions and accusations.
She claimed they failed to confer in any meaningful manner in order to file an explosive and professionally irresponsible filing.
She claimed the 431 cases not filed when the order was entered obviously couldn’t be subject to the order because of the deadline it provided.
She claimed the order included no language imposing an obligation or a deadline on cases filed in the future.
She claimed that among the 155 cases that were filed before the order was entered, defendants disregarded 16 with documents that plaintiffs uploaded.
She claimed four cases weren’t pending when defendants filed their motion.
She claimed nine plaintiffs dismissed their cases since the motion was filed.
“The common theme expressed to plaintiffs’ leadership regarding the remaining cases is that there is no viable person or entity to subpoena because the employers and known suppliers are out of business and third party witnesses have passed away or cannot be found,” Doles wrote.
She claimed there will be cases where no documentary proof of use or exposure is available.
“Defendants’ motion should be denied and plaintiffs should be awarded costs associated with responding to this baseless motion,” she wrote.
She requested a hearing.
Plaintiffs filed 7,059 suits as of Oct. 1.
Rosenstengel closed 1,176 cases and 5,883 cases remained active.
She has initiated a process to select trial plaintiffs and hasn’t set trial dates.