Philadelphia County Court
PHILADELPHIA - A Philadelphia judge has rejected Syngenta's move to boot nearly 1,000 out-of-state plaintiffs suing over the herbicide Paraquat back to their homes.
The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas has created a mass tort program for these cases that, like others in the past, became a destination for plaintiffs and attorneys nationwide - thanks to the city's reputation for hammering defendants with large verdicts and Pennsylvania's controversial rules permitting companies to be sued there.
Paraquat plaintiffs say the product caused Parkinson's disease. Syngenta faces 938 lawsuits from plaintiffs living outside Pennsylvania and recently settled what was supposed to be the first trial, scheduled for Aug. 4.
Syngenta and Chevron said out-of-state evidence is not readily accessible, leading to an undue burden on their lawyers fighting the claims, and that there are difficulties getting witnesses to trials.
"While the process of domesticating a subpoena [in another state] may be cumbersome, the defendants have ample resources to obtain the information they seek," Judge Joshua Roberts wrote earlier this month.
"The defendants have not pointed to a single witness affidavit or testimony from a deposition where a witness made the blanket statement that they would be unable to attend trial in Philadelphia. Moreover, this Court regularly resolves trial scheduling conflicts and issues of witness availability."
Syngenta has asked that Roberts' order be certified so that it can appeal to the state Superior Court. All this is happening as the first bellwether trials are preparing to begin.
The case of Douglas Nemeth was supposed to be first up but settled July 7. There is a backup case for the Aug. 4 trial slot but the docket shows it is still scheduled for Oct. 6.
About 90% of the Paraquat cases in Philadelphia come from outside of Pennsylvania. A 2023 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court gave approval to Pennsylvania's registration statute, which drags out-of-state companies into the state's courts if they do something as simple as register to sell their products there. And the plaintiff need not be a Pennsylvanian either.
One result is a mass-tort program in Philadelphia that has historically attracted plaintiff lawyers and their out-of-state clients chasing the type of blockbuster awards juries there have routinely given out.
Juries in Pennsylvania gave out the third-most of any state last year - $3.4 billion - said a study by Marathon Strategies. The largest came in Philadelphia's Roundup weedkiller program, which closely resembles Paraquat. Another verdict has Exxon potentially paying $725 million in pain-and-suffering damages in a benzene case, and business groups want the Superior Court to rein those types of verdicts in.
Syngenta has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its case arguing Pennsylvania's registration statute violates the Dormant Commerce Clause, which limits how states can regulate commerce.
Syngenta owns no property in Pennsylvania and employs about 15 people in it who are mostly sales representatives. It also faces about 6,000 lawsuits in a federal court in Southern Illinois.
