Philadelphia County Court
PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia judge handling coordination of more than 1,000 lawsuits over the herbicide Paraquat has changed his mind and will let plaintiff lawyers pick which case they want to try first.
A previous case management order giving defendants Syngenta and Chevron that choice was undone by Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge Joshua Roberts’ newest CMO, entered last month after protests from plaintiff lawyers.
Lawyers at The Miller Firm, Motley Rice and Wagstaff Law Firm are leading the plaintiffs and will have five cases to choose from in the first Paraquat trial. Roberts added two options (plaintiffs Parker and Mertens) suggested as backups in case other lawsuits settled before a January trial date.
Not among the selections are the plaintiff lawyers’ apparent favorites – Lutz, Steele and Lewis. Those three are put on a list for an April trial.
The stakes are high for the first few trials against Syngenta and Chevron, who recently lost the argument that they shouldn’t be subjected to lawsuits from non-Pennsylvanians who picked Philadelphia’s pro-plaintiff court to sue.
Two bellwether trials had been scheduled for this year but settled, leaving Jan. 26 as the next scheduled trial date. Plaintiff lawyers had picked those plaintiffs but complained the companies strategically settled them so trial no. 3 would be the choice of defendants.
“The first verdicts in this (mass tort program), or even the specter of the first verdicts, will exert significant influence on the settlement value of the vast majority of MTP cases that will, as a matter of practical realty, never be tried,” Tayjes Shah of The Miller Firm wrote.
“Allowing Defendants to pick these cases by manipulating the trial setting process would reward Defendants for frustrating the Court’s repeated case management orders by their gamesmanship.”
More than 6,000 plaintiffs have brought suit in federal court, while the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas handles another 1,360. About 90% of those plaintiffs are from out-of-state.
Juries in Philadelphia sometimes welcome the chance to hammer corporate defendants. For example, a jury hearing claims the weedkiller Roundup awarded $2.2 billion, and another jury gave $725 million in a case against Exxon Mobil over alleged benzene exposure.
The Paraquat cases are similar to Roundup litigation, in which plaintiffs allege exposure to glyphosate caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Among the Philadelphia Roundup verdicts are $2.2 billion (later reduced to $400 million), $175 million and $78 million.
After the bellwether Paraquat cases were settled, Judge Roberts allowed Chevron and Syngenta to pick the January plaintiff. Plaintiff lawyers called it a practice to “selectively” settle plaintiff picks when it is too late to substitute a new trial case.
Lawyers for the defendants said this is incorrect. They were ready for trial on one of them, but the family chose to settle when their case could have been dismissed on summary judgment, they said.
“Plaintiffs’ motive is plain: they seek to avoid any jury passing judgment on any cases selected by Defendants, even though Plaintiffs’ counsel filed those cases, in favor of their preferred Plaintiffs,” the companies said.
“But Plaintiffs’ counsel already selected the first two cases that they wanted to take to trial, and those Plaintiffs chose the certainty of settlement instead of the uncertainty of trial.”
