GADSDEN
The Monsanto trial jury will consider today whether the company and its spinoff, Solutia, should be held liable for polluting Anniston-area residents' blood and properties with PCBs.
Jurors will consider six counts against the companies: negligence, wantonness, suppression of the truth, nuisance, trespass and outrage.
If the Etowah County jury finds Monsanto and Solutia liable in a verdict that could come as early as today, jurors will then have to consider what damages to award a group of 17 plaintiffs who are claiming property damages and emotional distress. If the jury decides against finding the companies liable, the trial will be over for the entire group of 3,500 plaintiffs in the Bowie vs. Monsanto case. At least 500 of the group are claiming personal injuries due to PCBs.
The jury began deliberating late Wednesday afternoon after hearing about four hours of closing arguments. After 30 minutes in the jury room, the jurors asked Calhoun County Circuit Judge Joel Laird to allow them to go home for the evening and pick up deliberations this morning.
The large conglomeration of attorneys, plaintiffs and spectators slowly pushed their way out of the courtroom at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon.
During the morning, plaintiffs' attorney Donald Stewart had focused in his closing statements on Monsanto's own documentation of its pollution problems and the alleged coverup. Stewart said Monsanto was aware after the 1960s that future migration of PCBs from its plant site was "a huge problem they faced in the future," but that the company "walked away" from the problem.
Stewart accused Solutia of spending the past decade in "public relations" gimmickry to avoid a comprehensive PCB cleanup in western Anniston and local waterways. "We are basing our claims not on conduct days ago
it's what they did and what they refused to do in the 1990s and today."
Stewart said for Monsanto to "walk away" from the PCB contamination problem - "this hazardous and dangerous mess" - was "the epitome of uncivilized behavior."
Monsanto attorneys George Ford and Jere White, however, told the jury the company had acted in a responsible fashion.
"You know, the South has been very lucky," Ford said, in his first comments to the jury, telling them that industries in towns like Gadsden helped spur economic growth after the Civil War and Reconstruction. In the early 1900s, "production was what we wanted," Ford said.
He mentioned the endangered spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest and the current debate over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as examples of a more recent emphasis on protecting the environment.
As several current and retired Monsanto and Solutia employees looked on from the benches, Ford asked the jury to consider whether the company would have hosted social events, such as its former Easter egg hunt, on its property "if they had any inkling at all there was a hazardous substance."
He noted that the acceptable level of PCBs, a suspected carcinogen, in food is 5 parts per billion. "If I can go out and eat (PCBs) in a cheeseburger, then how dangerous can it be to have it in the soil?"
White, Monsanto's lead attorney in the case, concluded the closing statements for the defense after a lunch break, saying that a "true verdict" in the Bowie case would be against the plaintiffs.
He said there is no evidence to show that Monsanto dumped PCBs deliberately. "I think Monsanto was ahead of its time," White told the jury.
He noted that recent monitoring data indicates there are no longer any PCBs leaking from the landfills in storm water. "It means the steps and actions that Monsanto took worked."
Regarding the plaintiffs, he said they are not sick and their property is safe. "If it needs to be cleaned up, we will do it."
In his rebuttal to the defense statements, Stewart said Monsanto ignored common sense by not tracking its pollution into the nearby neighborhoods where the plaintiffs live.
He cited old and recent memos from Monsanto and Solutia, one of which he said indicated an intention to "let the government prove its case (on PCBs) on a case-by-case basis" and another of which dealt with planned contributions to Gov. Don Siegelman's inaugural campaign.
"What they've done is public relations, folks," Stewart said.
"They say it's no big deal, that everybody is overreacting. I think the last 10 years prove otherwise," Stewart added.
Judge Laird spent approximately 30 minutes giving legal instructions about the six counts against Monsanto to the jury. He noted that the Bowie case is "the longest one I've ever tried."
"I know that you've paid close attention. You've been a great jury," he said.
