St. Louis, MO, Nov. 13--It's not a new story. Nor is it a new case. But lawyers are bringing fresh claims for millions of dollars against Solutia Inc. and Monsanto Co. over the contamination of Anniston, AL, with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The lawyers, led by Ralph Knowles Jr. of Atlanta, say their clients--1,596 residents of Anniston whose health and homes were harmed by PCBs--are entitled to at least as much money as approximately 3,500 other Anniston residents received in Abernathy v. Monsanto, a similar case settled in August for $300 million.
The Abernathy settlement was part of a "global" deal that covered another case, Tolbert v. Monsanto, for a total of $600 million in cash and services.
Knowles and his colleagues settled their case, Owens v. Monsanto, in 2001 for $40 million. Now, they say they didn't get enough.
Our clients "have had to fight for everything they have ever recovered from Solutia/Monsanto, and it now appears they will be forced to renew their fight," the lawyers said in a filing on Oct. 29 in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, AL.
The clients have a right to receive more money in light of the August settlements, the filing says. "That is what they bargained for, and that is what they must receive."
The lawyers declined to comment beyond their filing.
Monsanto and Solutia representatives said the companies will fight the claim. They have until Wednesday to respond.
The old Monsanto Co. produced PCBs in Anniston for decades, until the chemical was phased out by the federal government in the 1970s.
PCBs leaked into the town's waterways and nearby properties, sparking a host of lawsuits by residents who say the value of their homes was lost and their health was damaged. PCBs are a suspected carcinogen, although the link to cancer has not been proven in court.
In 1997, when Solutia spun off from the former Monsanto Co., it assumed the PCB liability. In 2000, Monsanto merged into Pharmacia Corp., now a division of Pfizer Inc. In 2001, a new Monsanto spun out of Pharmacia as a biotech seeds and agrochemical company--and said that if Solutia should become unable to cover PCB-related costs, it would take them on.
The three companies shared the cost of settling the Tolbert and Abernathy cases last summer. It was billed as a "global" settlement, meant to end all legal claims from Anniston residents.
But the Owens case was already on the books, complete with a clause that set the stage for its resurrection.
The Owens settlement gave its plaintiffs "most-favored nation" status--saying that if any similar case were to be settled giving plaintiffs more than $20,677 apiece, then the 1,596 people represented by Owens should receive the difference. Under the formula, the amounts per plaintiff are calculated before deducting lawyers' fees that typically are 40 percent.
Knowles and his colleagues argue that in the Abernathy case, with approximately 3,500 plaintiffs splitting $300 million, the average payment per plaintiff is "substantially higher."
Glenn Ruskin, spokesman for Solutia, said Knowles is "trying to compare apples to oranges. ...They're trying to piece off Abernathy and twist it this way and that" to meet the most-favored nation standard.
But the Abernathy and Tolbert cases must be considered together, he said, with more than 20,000 plaintiffs; and much of the $600 million settlement being used for a clinic and health-care services, an education fund and environmental cleanup.
"When you get down to looking overall at the average that everyone is going to end up getting here, it's probably going to be very similar to what it was in the Owens case," Ruskin said.
Put plainly, he doesn't think the average payout to Abernathy and Tolbert plaintiffs will exceed $20,677.
Much has yet to be determined in the complex global settlement. Payouts will be made according to health claims, levels of PCBs found in plaintiffs' blood and other factors. The work of studying individual claims is barely under way.
"It's hard to calculate," Ruskin said. "It's very complicated."
