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Monsanto is moving to capitalize on a Washington state appellate victory it claims casts doubt on more than $1.1 billion in PCB poisoning verdicts, while plaintiffs are staking out positions to defend — and even build on — their blockbuster wins.

Attorneys for Monsanto Co. say the Washington Court of Appeals' May 1 ruling, reversing the $185 million verdict in favor of teachers who worked at the Sky Valley Education Center, is a massive blow to the entire group of school staff members, former students and parents who claim they developed health problems due to polychlorinated biphenyls emitted by light fixtures at the public school site roughly 35 miles northeast of Seattle.

Seeking to interrupt a steady drumbeat of trial losses, the chemical giant argues that the Court of Appeals identified errors in the lower court's handling of Erickson v. Pharmacia LLC that also apply to plaintiffs' seven subsequent victories. The total damages at one point topped $1.7 billion, before one verdict was reduced by a judge in April and the plaintiffs' Erickson win was overturned last month.

The company is trumpeting the appellate panel's conclusions that the trial court had wrongly barred a key company defense and allowed punitive damages for the specific product liability claim of post-sale failure to warn — both of which involved questions about whether certain provisions of law from Monsanto's home state of Missouri could be applied to the case. The ruling also struck certain expert testimony on toxic exposure levels that Monsanto has characterized as integral to the entire case group.

"The company will pursue the reversal of the seven other past verdicts based on the Erickson appeal ruling," a company spokesperson said in a statement to Law360. "Because there are some additional appellate issues in each of the prior cases and they are at different stages of the post-trial process, the timing, substance, and form of these actions will vary from case to case."

Counsel for the plaintiffs, meanwhile, just last week urged the Washington state Supreme Court to review the appellate panel's decision. In a Friday petition seeking the high court's review, the Erickson plaintiffs wrote that the case "presents three important, recurring, and unsettled questions of law that will immediately affect dozens of parallel pending cases, comprising the claims of more than two hundred victims of toxic chemical exposure and over $1 billion in verdicts already handed down across eight trials."

They also intend to move for expedited review of their petition, according to Henry Jones of Friedman Rubin PLLC.