Circuit Judge Joel Laird transferred the largest of six Calhoun County PCB pollution cases to Etowah County Friday morning.
The case was brought by 3,500 local residents who accuse Monsanto Corp. of damaging their properties and their bodies with PCBs.
In two court orders issued by Laird Friday in the Susan Abernathy v. Monsanto case, he sharply criticized Monsanto lawyers' handling of the case. The case is set to go to trial Oct. 1.
In his first order, Laird said he selected Etowah County because it is racially diverse, like Calhoun County. Many of the litigants in the PCB case are African-American.
Monsanto had proposed transferring the trial to Blount, DeKalb or Marshall county. All three are almost completely white.
Laird wrote he "certainly hopes that Defendants aren't attempting to inject issues of race into this case."
Monsanto lawyer Adam Peck said that was not the case.
Peck said those three counties were chosen because they were relatively close to Calhoun County but far enough away that residents and potential jurors may not have heard about Monsanto's PCBs.
"This is the first time race has come up, and it wasn't by us, it was by the court," he said.
Peck said Monsanto will not challenge the judge's decision to move the case to Etowah, but probably will petition to remove the judge's comment about the racial aspect from the court record.
Plaintiff attorney Donald Stewart, who filed the Susan Abernathy v. Monsanto and a series of other similar cases in 1996, declined to comment on the judge's orders, other than to say, "He's the judge, so we'll do what he says."
Laird also has accused Monsanto's lawyers of misrepresenting his court's actions in scheduling and managing the case.
In his second order, establishing the trial schedule, Laird wrote that "the Defendants, through counsel, have been less than completely honest and straightforward with not only this Court, but the Supreme Court of Alabama."
Laird disputes previous statements from Monsanto attorneys to the Supreme Court that he did not establish a trial schedule.
As a rebuttal, Laird included in his order a May 13, 1998 pre-trial scheduling order, setting the case for trial in November of 1998 and setting time frames. At the time, Laird also announced his plan to hear, in one proceeding, all the evidence pertaining to 3,500 plaintiffs' liability issues.
Monsanto lawyers strongly object to a trial that begins with an overall question of the company's liability. "It's trying the claims in the abstract," Peck said.
He maintains that Laird did not establish a "clear" case-management order.
"He makes some allegations about us, personally. We have been nothing but honest and forthright," Peck said.
In 1998, before the trial was initially set to begin, Monsanto asked Laird to try each of the 3,500 claims separately.
Plaintiff attorney Donald Stewart asked the judge to initially hear 25 claims at once.
The trial was postponed to February of 1999.
Several weeks before the trial was to begin, Monsanto attorneys filed a writ of mandamus with the state Supreme Court, asking them to intervene in the case and rule on a number of motions, including change of venue and splitting the case 3,500 ways.
Several months ago, the state court finally ruled on Monsanto's request, rejecting all of the motions and returning the case to Laird's court.
Laird told the Star Friday that he feels it is necessary to proceed with the case the way he had outlined in 1998.
He said he doesn't want to split the case 3,500 ways or even hear 25 claims at once, because "each trial costs the taxpayers money."
"I think we can do it all in one trial," he said, commenting that "everybody had entered basically the same claim."
Peck responded, "We feel the case management order isn't workable. We plan to file objections."
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