Word: monsanto
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Named for its lead plaintiff, a retired schoolteacher, the case was originally filed in Boone County, Mo., where the spill occurred. But Carr refiled it, over Monsanto's objection, in St. Clair County, Ill., where the chemical was made. He was well aware that juries have been generous there. Complains Monsanto Lawyer David Snively: "St. Clair is renowned as a plaintiff's paradise...
Over another Monsanto objection, Carr got all the spill cases consolidated, so the proceedings involved 65 plaintiffs, each with multiple medical complaints from alleged dioxin exposure. More than 80,000 pages of testimony from 167 witnesses have been transcribed so far. The case file is already five feet thick. Over 6,000 exhibits have been entered into evidence...
Every morning of the trial, Monsanto's lawyers trundle boxes of documents to court on baggage carts from leased offices two blocks away. The courtroom is cluttered with 4-ft. by 5-ft. symptom boards, outlining alleged dioxin-related plaintiff ills ranging from headaches and high blood pressure to depression and decreased sexual desire. Carr concedes that "none of my clients is falling down sick." But the core of his case concerns possible future cancer developing from dioxin exposure in the 1979 spill...
...environmental medicine at the University of Illinois, spent 76 days on the witness stand -- at a fee of $3,000 a day to his Chicago health-consultancy firm -- putting the dots up as expert witness for the plaintiffs, contending the ills the dots represent could be dioxin-related. Monsanto's rebuttal expert, Dr. James R. Webster, chief of medicine at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital, is now in the process of disputing Dr. Carnow, dot by dot, testifying that all alleged ills either predated the spill or could have been caused by something other than dioxin. By the time...
...court. Most continue to draw salaries from their pretrial employers. Four jurors have been excused for illness or injury since the trial began. The original juror panel of 18 is now down to 14, including two alternates. If the number falls below twelve, a mistrial is likely. Carr charges Monsanto with scheming to force one through a strategy of "delay, delay and more delay...