EAST ST. LOUIS - Lawyers who arranged for this city to pay St. Clair County $10 each for 73 vacant parcels possibly worth $3.6 million each in a pollution suit against Monsanto admitted on Nov. 21 that the sale lacked necessary approval from the county board.
City counsel Paul Johnson told U.S. District Judge David Dugan that the information came out at a deposition of county board member Lonnie Mosely on Nov. 14.
City counsel Matthew Limoli of North Carolina defended the transaction in September, claiming the intent to affect litigation doesn’t make a municipal act improper.
Johnson’s current pleading, a motion for a conference, conceded a pending claim from Monsanto that the sale was void from the start.
On that basis he proposed to drop the subject.
He asked Dugan to cancel a deposition of county board member Roy Mosely, nephew of Lonnie Mosely, that Monsanto set for Monday, Nov. 25.
He stated Lonnie Mosely testified that Roy Mosely was involved in the transaction.
In a conference on Nov. 22, Dugan decided Monsanto could depose Roy Mosely on Nov. 25 or any other agreeable date.
East St. Louis started the proceedings in 2021 by issuing nuisance tickets to Monsanto and its successors Solutia and Pharmacia.
The tickets alleged that defendants contaminated the city with polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB).
Defendants removed the tickets to district court on the basis of diverse citizenship as Missouri citizens, and the city converted the tickets to a civil complaint.
The city seeks billions in remediation and daily penalties per parcel for more than 50 years.
Monsanto counsel Adam Miller of St. Louis County moved in September for a conference to address the city’s disclosure of its purchase of 73 parcels.
He attached documents showing signatures of Lonnie Mosley as trustee chairman, Robert Betts as city manager, and Charles Powell III as city manager. signed it on Aug. 30.
He claimed the city signed it on Sept. 3.
He claimed the sale purported to include an assignment of the trustee’s rights to the city.
He claimed the city placed 273 parcels at issue and claimed to own all of them.
“That turned out to be untrue,” he wrote.
He claimed defendants learned the city owned 100 of the properties and if the city’s disclosure was correct the city owned 173.
He claimed the city estimated $3.6 million in damages per parcel.
He suggested the transaction was designed to manipulate the outcome of the lawsuit.
He asked for discovery relating to the sale, claiming the trustee paid $2,000 to $25,000 for other properties among the 273.
“How and why did the city convince the trustee to part with 73 additional properties for just $10 each?” he wrote.
Limoli responded that Monsanto cited no authority for a proposition that disclosure of material that did not exist before a discovery deadline is untimely.
He claimed Monsanto failed to allege even in general terms what it believed it could uncover.
He claimed the assignment didn’t convey the parcels themselves.
“The consideration is contemplated solely for the claims which of course are contingent, may be worth nothing, and are costly to pursue," he wrote.
Miller replied that the city entered into the transaction because it recognized it lacked ownership of most of the properties for which it seeks damages.
He claimed the obvious purpose was to increase potentially available damages.
He called it a mess of the city’s own making.
Dugan held a conference on Oct. 2 and gave defendants 90 days of discovery.
In about half that time they exposed the deficiency in the transaction.
City counsel Johnson broke the news to Dugan on Nov. 21, a week after defendants deposed Lonnie Mosely.
He wrote that Mosely didn’t execute the assignment properly, “because it had not been considered or approved by the county board.”
He proposed to stipulate that it was void, invalid, and of no legal effect, and it should be excluded from evidence at trial.
“Because the city no longer intends to rely on the assignment to prove any of its claims, the assignment is irrelevant and no further discovery about it is required," he wrote.
After hearing argument the next day Dugan disagreed.
He has set jury trial starting in June.
Johnson, Limoli, and eight other lawyers represent the city in association with the city’s regular firm of Chatham and Baricevic in Belleville.
The city approved their fees at 40% or 45% in the event of appeal.