Anniston Star
September 13, 2002

Alabama Supreme Court stays PCB suit proceedings

By Sara Clemence
Star Staff Writer

The Alabama Supreme Court has brought Anniston's longest-running PCB lawsuit, already
postponed, to a temporary halt.

Calhoun-Cleburne Circuit Judge Joel Laird had put the case on hold while awaiting an Etowah County judge's ruling on whether Laird should continue to preside over the trial.

Now the Supreme Court has ordered a stay on all trial proceedings except for submission of written evidence on property damage.

In the lawsuit, Abernathy v. Monsanto, more than 3,500 current and former residents of the area around the former Anniston Monsanto plant accuse the company of contaminating their properties and bodies with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. PCBs are suspected to cause cancer in humans, and were produced at the plant until the late 1970s.

The court order, which fills barely half a page, was a response to a motion filed by Monsanto attorneys on Aug. 8. The motion asked for a stay based on the pending recusal decision.

"It made good sense from a strategic perspective to have everything stay in place," said Beth Rusert, spokesperson for Solutia, the company that was spun off from Monsanto in 1997 and that now owns the former Monsanto plant.

The Supreme Court issued its ruling Aug. 19. The Star received a copy of the order this week.

The ruling does not change the current state of the case, but the trial can not resume without another order from the Supreme Court.

The lawsuit was filed in 1996, but has been held up several times. At one point, the Supreme Court took two years to rule on Monsanto's motions.

The actual state court trial began this January. In February, a jury found Monsanto liable for
damages, but had not heard any testimony on compensation.

In March, the Environmental Protection Agency and Solutia announced that they had negotiated a cleanup agreement for PCB contamination around Anniston. The proposed agreement was filed in federal court. It is still unclear how the agreement will affect the lawsuit. The EPA is currently reviewing the public's responses to the agreement.

In April, Monsanto filed a motion for Laird to recuse himself from the state case. Laird referred the motion to Etowah County Judge William Cardwell for a ruling, and ordered a partial stay of the trial in the meantime.

Last month, a hearing on Laird's recusal took place before Cardwell in Gadsden.

Monsanto attorneys argued that Laird had shown bias against them in his rulings, and had broken rules of conduct by talking to the press.

The lead plaintiffs' attorney, Donald Stewart, countered that Solutia's evidence was taken out of context, and that Laird had spoken to the press in order to educate and inform the public.

Neither Laird nor Stewart had any comment on the recent Supreme Court ruling. Supreme Court justices do not comment on their orders.