By Cara Salvatore · Listen to article
Law360 (November 18, 2024, 11:24 PM EST) -- Four teenagers and a mother suing Monsanto over PCB damage at their former school took the stand Monday to testify, some tearfully, about physical and mental maladies they believe stem from exposure to decades-old light fixture fluid.
The jury in the trial heard from 16-year-old Rowin Grant, 13-year-old Mabry Grant, 19-year-old Hudson Snyder, 15-year-old Nolan Simmer, and Rowin and Mabry's mother, Donya Grant, in a trial now stretching into its fifth week over exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls at Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington.
The witnesses spoke of suffering from headaches, lack of appetite, skin conditions, memory loss, emotional outbursts, insomnia, inability to focus and fear about being able to maintain normal relationships or losing their faculties to a greater degree as they grow older.
"How often do you worry about what it'll be like later?" a lawyer for the plaintiffs asked Rowin Grant.
"Often," she said.
"Your sister Mabry, do you take care of her?" the lawyer asked. Rowin Grant's face crumpled, and tears welled up in her eyes as she looked down.
"That's all I have," the lawyer said.
A few hours later, when their mother, Donya Grant, was on the stand, she said her elder two children, Hadley and Kemper, had also experienced problems that started or restarted after their Sky Valley attendance.
Speaking calmly and clearly but rocking back and forth for the entirety of her testimony, Donya Grant said she had experienced "more headaches, more difficulty controlling my emotions," a newly unpredictable menstrual cycle and fatigue. "It was unusual for me to be at home in the middle of the day and feeling like I needed a nap, but I felt that more often," she said.
Meanwhile, Hudson Snyder said he and his younger brother Emmett — who is expected to testify Tuesday — both have serious problems with their appetites.
"It's kind of a graphic comparison, but both myself and Emmett have been compared to Holocaust survivors multiple times by doctors and other people," Hudson said. He also stated that he struggles seriously with decision-making and follow-through, even on things that he had been highly interested in.
Lawyers for Monsanto focused their cross-examination on what the plaintiffs do seem to be able to do. Rowin said she plays sports seriously and practices piano. The Grants are homeschooled and receive high grades.
And Hudson Snyder has taught himself figure drawing by studying textbooks — some of his highly detailed work was shown during his cross-examination. He also plays guitar in a band and snowboards, he said on cross-examination.
Monsanto's attorneys were also able to establish that many of the children were not at the school complex full-time, but spent a few hours a day there a few days a week.
In 2011, the multibuilding Sky Valley Educational Center, about 35 miles northeast of Seattle, took over a 1967 building complex in which old fluorescent light fixtures and classroom caulk were slowly releasing polychlorinated biphenyls, the plaintiffs claim.
The ongoing trial involves student Gunnar L.G. Rose and 14 other individuals who claim they developed a variety of health conditions due to the use of the school buildings.
Monsanto sold numerous formulations of the dielectric insulating liquids under the brand name Aroclor, producing 1.2 billion pounds of them from the 1930s to the 1970s, juries have heard. The fluid filled small capacitor ballast boxes in hundreds of fluorescent light fixtures at the complex. But the company knew for decades of the now-banned chemicals' extreme toxicity, lawyers said.
The case is the tenth Sky Valley case to go to trial; Washington's Supreme Court has agreed to take up the first of them, called Erickson, after three teachers' $185 million victory was overturned in May by the state's Court of Appeals.
Pharmacia LLC, a Monsanto spinoff that its once-parent is defending in litigation over PCBs made from the 1930s to 1977, faces an additional $1.1 billion-plus in verdicts from the trials but has appealed those losses. Monsanto was acquired by Bayer AG in 2018.
This jury recently heard from industrial hygienist Kevin Coghlan that Monsanto-made PCBs were "pervasive" at the school complex. Coghlan said different Aroclor formulas, identified by four-digit numbers, were in materials like caulk as well, not just ballast boxes.
The Rose plaintiffs are represented by Henry Jones, Sean Gamble, Richard Friedman, James Hertz and Ronald Park of Friedman Rubin PLLP, Colleen Peterson and Bridget Grotz of Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC, and Nicholas Rowley, Courtney Rowley and Theresa Hatch of Trial Lawyers for Justice.
Monsanto is represented by Steven Fogg, Emily Harris and Lucio Maldonado of Corr Cronin LLP, Liz Blackwell and Darci Madden of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, Kimberly Branscome of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP, Anthony Upshaw of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and Lindsey Boney IV of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.
The case is Gunnar L.G. Rose et al. v. Pharmacia LLC, case number 87281-8, in King County Superior Court.
--Editing by Kristen Becker.
