Monsanto, Solutia are Targets of GE Worker Lawsuit
St. Louis, MO, January 5, 2006--Monsanto, Solutia and Pharmacia Inc., are the targets of a lawsuit by about 590 current General Electric employees in Schenectady, N.Y., Monsanto said Wednesday, according to the St. Louis Business Journal.
The workers claim personal injury and fear of future disease from the exposure to chemical products containing polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which were banned for use in the 1970s because of their effects on the environment.
In a conference call Wednesday, the company said the lawsuit was a product liability suit, which differs from a previous suit it and Solutia settled for $600 million in 2003 over its former production of PCBs at facilities in Alabama.
Glynn Young, a spokesman for Monsanto, told the Business Journal Wednesday that the suit, filed in the Supreme Court of New York County in New York, seeks "multi-billion-dollar damages."
Young said after Monsanto started phasing out production of PCBs in 1970, it was common practice at the time for customers who still wanted to receive or use PCBs, used as a heat transfer fluid, to sign an indemnification agreement. He said Monsanto and GE are looking into whether GE signed such an agreement.
GE was one of the larger customers of PCBs historically, Young said, using it to make electrical equipment, machinery, and jet engines.
"We're confident that we have numerous legal defenses against these claims," Terry Crews, chief financial officer, said in the conference call. "We're confident that we have no liabilities or claims to GE employees."
Solutia was spun off from Monsanto in 1997. Pharmacia bought Monsanto in 2000, then spun it off in 2002.
