Latest Updates on Paraquat Parkinson’s Disease Lawsuits To Be Reviewed During MDL Conference on December 19

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all federal Paraquat Parkinson’s disease lawsuits will hold a status conference next week, to allow the parties to update the court on the status of the litigation, and progress preparing a second group of “bellwether” cases for early trial dates.

Syngenta and Chevron currently face more than 5,800 product liability lawsuits in the federal court system, each of which involve claims that the manufacturers failed to adequately disclose the link between use of Paraquat and Parkinson’s disease.

Due to the common questions of fact and law raised by users who were diagnosed with the devastating disease after regularly transporting, mixing and spraying the controversial weed killer, all federally-filed Paraquat lawsuits have been centralized before U.S. District Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel in the Southern District of Illinois since June 2021, as part of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL.

Over the past three years, Judge Rosenstengel has been working with the parties to establish a bellwether process, where a small group of representative Paraquat lawsuits are being prepared for early test trials, to help the parties see how juries may respond to evidence and expert testimony that is likely to come up throughout the litigation.

However, earlier this year, Judge Rosenstengel dismissed a first batch of potential Paraquat bellwether cases, after excluding the plaintiff’s designated expert witness from testifying at trial. This left those claimants without any means to link their Parkinson’s disease diagnosis to Paraquat exposure.

In August, the Court selected 10 new Paraquat lawsuits to undergo case specific discovery in preparation for the bellwether trials, which will rely on different expert witness testimony than the previously dismissed claims. Judge Rosenstengel gave the parties until December 16 to turn in a one-page summary of each selected lawsuit.

In an order entered into the court docket on November 25, she announced that the next status conference will be held on December 19, three days after the case summary deadline.

No date for the first Paraquat bellwether trial has yet been set. When and if they do occur, they will be closely watched to see if the results can help the parties reach a potential Paraquat lawsuit settlement agreement. If not, Judge Rosenstengel would likely remand the cases back to their originating districts for individual trial dates.