Washington State Sues Monsanto For Pollution (Audio)

we look, our food, our fisher, real buttons. Several organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency, have said PCBs caused cancer and animals and probably are chasinogenic to humans and affect the immune, nervous, and reproductive systems. Congress banned them in nineteen seventy nine, but Washington's Attorney General, Bob Ferguson said that Monsanto produced PCBs for decades after knowing their danger to humans and the environment. In fact, they knew was

early nineteen thirties that PCBs were toxic to humans. An internal Monsanto memo from seven warmed up quote systemic toxic effects and quote from prolonged exposures and PCP favors. Monsanto was the only US manufacturer of PCBs, and in suits against it by cities such as Seattle, Portland, Berkeley, and San Diego, the company has argued that PCBs were lawful and served an important fire protection and safety purpose at

the time they were sold. Our guest is Charles Warren, a partner at Cramer Levin, lef Talas and Frankel, where he leads the environmental practice and he's a former regional administrator with the e P. A. Chuck, there are smoking guns here. The Washington a g sited a nineteen sixty nine internal memo from Monsanto that it knew about global PCB contamination but concealed it because quote there's too much customer market need and selfishly too much Monsanto profit to

go out. Why isn't this an open and shut case? I think June It's said, actually tricky to bring a lawsuit against mont Santo for PCPs. There's a lot of things that go into it. It's somewhat akin to the cigarette situation, where it took a very long time and the first lawsuits against the cigarette companies were dismissed. They finally we're able to prevail, and a lot of the states prevailed really more on consumer protection anti trust laws.

And you know, part of the problem here is that you know, there there was sort of a bankruptcy proceeding on the part of Solution, which is uh where mont Santo would split up into Solution and Pharmacy and Montsanto three pieces and Montsanto kept some of the liabilities four PCBs, but they created a trust for claims and stuff like that, and that's an issue that you have to deal with the fact that you had this bankruptcy, which in some sense, you know, extinguishes a lot of claims from the past.

And uh so I think I think there's a lot of hurdles to jump over. I mean, they may be able to be successful because in the end, what did the cigarette companies in was that they found old memos and things like that where they knew about the dangers and still kept going. And we'll just have to see if the proof here is the same kind of proof that they found in those situations. And you know, we've seen some of it, but um, I think until you've seen the full evidence, it's gonna be a little hard

to predict what's going to happen. Well, the Chuck people have known for a long time that PCBs were dangerous and you know they're outlawed and it's not new news. So why I mean, you know, one of the things that sort of is curious about this is why you know, you could have sued them even without these memos, I suppose. But what what took so long for are An officials to want to bring these kinds of actions? Well, that's

that's that's another question that's going to come up. And I think even though the statue of limitations may not affect the state itself, but I think that's going to be an issue. I mean, PCBs have been banned by law since ninety six, so like Congress, and uh, they haven't been produced since then. And a lot of these things are uh you know, have have been there out there a long time, and they're alleging damage to water bodies and stuff like that that's obviously occurred over many

many years. And I think that's going to be an issue to absolutely what took them so long. I had thought they might try to bring because they're specifically um looking at a number of water bodies and things like that. I had thought they might want to try to bring a super fund action or something, but they don't seem to have done that. It's under state law claims they brought in the state court. And again, um, if they're not dismissed, a might find obviously sympathetic juries who will

rule against Montsanto in the first instance. Chuck Montanto, Montsanto spokesman, said that the case is experimental because it seeks to target a product manufacturer for selling a lawful and useful chemical for to eight decades ago. That was applied by the US government, Washington State, local cities, et cetera. That was to a p Is he right about that experimental? Yeah? That, Yeah, that's going to be part of their defense. Obviously, PCBs weren't outlawed until nine and uh, I don't know if

you can say they were necessarily approved. But there, you know, the state suing under things like product liability defective you know, inherently dangerous products. They're suing under negligence, they're suing under some state uh, you know, laws that allow them to bring suit for inherently dangerous chemicals, and so I think, you know, there's certainly the potential that they could be that the company could be found liable under those statutes.

But I think there's a lot of problems with that, as we've been discussing. I mean, the question of what they I agree with, what took them so long? The question of how how much proof is there that when they were actually manufacturing them they knew that it was dangerous to humans. I mean, they have some studies and animals, but that doesn't and necessarily mean that the uses that were that they were being put to, uh, you know, we're definitely dangerous to humans and stuff like that, or

that they knew or had reason to know. So it's going to be a I think it's not gonna be an easy case. Chuck. On the other's hand, you know, there's there the lawsuits are really this laws in particularly really based on the fact that PCPs is so pervasive in the environment from their use everywhere, and given the scope of their use and what is happened in the environment with them, what kind of liability if this case is allowed to go forward, could mon Santo face. Well,

it's the case does go forward. I mean, they've alleged many water bodies and it seems to me the damage could be in the billions of dollars here and because you're looking at trying to deal with PCBs. You know where if you look at what happened here in New York State where g E had to clean up PCBs in the Hudson which became a Federal Superfund site Hudson River. Uh, they spent like one and a half billion dollars and and you know, e p A said stop at the

A lot of citizens think they should do more. So it's so that's just one water body. And if you look at you know, if you look at what they're saying, in the state of Washington, they've got to it looks like, you know, over a hundred water bodies. And so I think you could be talking about really huge numbers here if there if they're ever found liable. Just about thirty

seconds here check. There are indications that other states may join in this, and there are certainly cities that are does Montsanto have the legal resources to fight this if it becomes a lot of states, Well, I think their first defense maybe you know that the that there, you know, they have already created a fund to deal with these claims under bankruptcy and to the extent that you're trying to, you know, puncture that you can't do it. That's gonna

be the first line of defense. Now, now court may say that doesn't apply to some of these newer cases, or because sometimes you know, when you deal with environmental issues in public health issues, bankruptcy doesn't always wash it clean.

But to the extent you're dealing with claims that date back to predate the bankruptcy and stuff, they may have the potential to do with it that way, but I think or you might see another bankruptcy, which is what happened in the Asbetas situation, where all these Asbeta's claims piled up, which looked like they were going into the billions of dollars. We'll have to stop their chuck. We'll

pick it up again another time. That's Charles Warren't share of the environmental practice at Kramer Levin coming up, Emerging trends in healthcare law. I'm Jim Gross with Michael Best. This is Bloomberg