On Aug. 15, the Missouri Supreme Court made permanent an emergency writ denying a St. Louis venue for defendant Bayer in litigation brought by users of Bayer’s herbicide Roundup.
The court granted the emergency writ petition halting a multi-plaintiff Roundup trial in the City of St. Louis midway through jury selection in January, available at bit.ly/3EkpG3R. Bayer’s attorneys, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, pointed out that such actions are exceedingly rare. St. Louis is a favored venue for plaintiff attorneys. Juries in the City of St. Louis have issued outsized verdicts in multi-plaintiff product liability cases in recent years, including a highly publicized $2 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson in talc litigation.
The six plaintiffs, who all allege they developed cancer as a result of exposure to Monsanto’s flagship herbicide Roundup, argued they should be able to sue Monsanto in the City of St. Louis, rather than the less-plaintiff-friendly St. Louis County, because they claimed Monsanto once had a registered agent in the city decades ago.
The trial court agreed with plaintiffs and consolidated all six cases into a single trial, though none of the plaintiffs live in Missouri, where Monsanto is headquartered. BCLP came aboard as legal and appellate counsel, a role the firm has played in numerous other Roundup trials.
The Supreme Court’s decision made the emergency writ granting venue relief permanent. BCLP says the decision will affect numerous cases, with innumerable plaintiffs, which the law firm says are improperly venued in the City of St. Louis and, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s latest ruling, must now be transferred to other venues in the state.
David Murray can be reached at [email protected].
