The Arkansas Department of Correction will get $1.3 million as a part of a settlement reached with divisions of the Pittsburgh-based Bayer Corp. in a lawsuit the department filed against Bayer for purported damage to the department’s rice crop caused by genetically engineered rice in the commercial rice supply.
The department has agricultural programs for inmates, who work to produce rice, among many other things. The department then markets the products from its agricultural operations.
Correction Department spokesman Shea Wilson said Wednesday that the money would go back into the programs.
In the Nov. 15, 2010, claim filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court, the department said it“suffered damage as a result of defendants’ contamination of the United States long-grain rice supply with genetically altered rice not approved for human consumption.”
The department claimed the genetically altered rice caused a decline in the value of its rice crop, the loss of export markets for the department’s rice crop and “other extensive harm.”
The complaint stated that Bayer knew before 2006 - when the lawsuit says reports revealed the rice supply had been “contaminated” and that it affected numerous rice mills in the European Union - that the rice was was not approved for human consumption, that other countries would not accept that rice and that the sale of it would lower the market price of U.S.-grown, long-grain rice.
The department accused Bayer of negligence, statutorynegligence, fraudulent concealment, violation of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, ultra-hazardous activity liability and public and private nuisance.
In a motion to dismiss the suit, Bayer’s lawyers said all but one of the department’s claims against the company were barred by a three-year statute of limitations. The motion also stated that the other claim, brought under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, did not apply to the company’s purported wrongdoing.
Both parties made a joint motion Jan. 22 to dismiss the case with prejudice after the settlement, which was agreed to Dec. 2. The motion was granted by 6th Division Pulaski Circuit Court Judge Tim Fox on Friday.
The case had been scheduled to go to trial Sept. 11 before being continued.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 14 on 02/02/2014