Bayer Loses Fifth Straight Trial Over U.S Rice Crops
Complete the form below to unlock access to ALL audio articles.
A jury in St. Louis said today the company should pay damages of $500,248. The company previously lost two trials in state court and two in federal, for a total of more than $52 million in jury awards.
It faces about 500 additional lawsuits in federal and state courts with claims by 6,600 plaintiffs. It hasn’t won any rice trials so far. The Louisiana grower, Danny Deshotels, and his family claimed the company and its Bayer CropScience unit were negligent in testing their genetically modified LibertyLink seed, causing a dive in exports to Europe.
“Five different juries under the laws of four different states in both federal and state courts now have unanimously found that Bayer was negligent and liable to rice farmers for damages,” Don Downing, Deshotels’ lawyer said after the trial. “Not a single juror in any of the five trials found for Bayer.”
Bayer, based in Leverkusen, Germany, denied it was negligent and disputed the damages claims. It said after today’s verdict it “will consider its legal options.”
“The facts in this specific case do not support an award of damages,” Greg Coffey, a CropScience spokesman, said in the statement. “The company maintains that it acted responsibly and appropriately at all times in the handling of its biotech rice.”
Sixth Trial Coming
A sixth case is scheduled to begin trial July 19 in state court in Arkansas, followed by a federal trial in St. Louis in October, Coffey said yesterday in an interview.
Lawyer for growers will continue pushing these cases to trial “until Bayer decides it is willing to provide fair compensation through settlement,” Downing said after the verdict.
Bayer has been participating in mediation discussions in the federal lawsuits in St. Louis, Coffey said. The company is “hopeful that all parties might approach resolution in a positive and reasonable manner,” he said.
The newest loss might spur Bayer into “thinking seriously about a settlement,” said law professor Carl Tobias, of the University of Richmond in Virginia. “Five in a row seems pretty convincing,” he said in a phone interview. “But Bayer might think it’s worth it to test out a few more.”
Five States
Farmers in five states claim the company and Bayer CropScience negligently contaminated the U.S. long-grain rice crop with its genetically modified LibertyLink seed, leading to export restrictions, bans on two kinds of high-yield seeds and a plunge in prices.
The rice growers’ “reputation for producing a pure product was destroyed, with the export market lost,” Downing told the federal court jury yesterday. “It was Bayer’s carelessness, and Danny Deshotels was hurt.”
Bayer didn’t dispute contamination. It denied it was negligent and said rice sales rebounded after an initial drop.
The farmers’ losses “were minimal and short-lived,” Mark Ferguson, the company’s trial attorney, said in closing arguments at the trial. “Global prices recovered quickly with the discovery of other markets.”
