While one case ended in a mistrial and partial finding in Monsanto’s favor, the other juries have agreed that the company caused injury to some or all of the plaintiffs in each trial group by supplying a product that was not reasonably safe. The defendant named in the cases is Pharmacia LLC, a corporate spinoff that Monsanto has agreed to defend in litigation stemming from its manufacture of PCBs from the 1930s to 1977.
King County Superior Court Judge Jim Rogers, who’s overseeing case management of the lawsuit series, has postponed an upcoming trial that was expected to begin on May 20 to January and outlined a plan to consider consolidation of plaintiff groups for future trials. Otherwise, the judge has said, trying the more than 20 cases remaining would probably take nearly a decade.
Judge Rogers also rejected Monsanto’s bid, just days after the Erickson ruling came down, to get the trial court to undo the plaintiffs’ most recent win in Bard v. Monsanto based on the appellate panel’s reasoning. He did not comment on the merits of the company’s arguments, but instead said he would let the appellate process play out.
