An Arkansas farmer's lawsuit against Syngenta, the Switzerland seed manufacturer, has been certified as a class action.
The lawsuit by Kenny Falwell of Eagle Lake Farms in Newport is one of several thousand filed across the country alleging that Syngenta cost farmers and others in agriculture at least $3 billion in sales when the company's genetically modified corn seed disrupted the corn market in 2013 and 2014.
Falwell, who farms about 6,000 acres, first filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court of Arkansas in Little Rock, but it was soon transferred to a federal district court in Kansas and consolidated with about 2,000 lawsuits from 21 other states.
U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum on Monday certified one nationwide class of plaintiffs and eight statewide classes of plaintiffs, including those in Arkansas. There is no precise count of the number of Arkansas farmers who grew corn during the contested growing seasons of 2013 and 2014, but lawyers involved in the case said the number will be in the thousands.
Arkansas farmers planted 1 million acres of corn in 2013 -- the most in the state since 1951 -- and 400,000 acres in 2014.
The Kansas judge named Falwell as a "bellwether plaintiff" of the Arkansas case.
One of Falwell's attorneys, John Emerson of Little Rock, said in an email Tuesday that the term "is important as it can be the bellwether or predictor for the future of the claims of Arkansas corn farmers.'' Emerson is with the Emerson Poynter law firm, which has offices in Little Rock and Houston.
The website lawyersandsettlements.com calls a bellwether case "a bit of a litmus test" common in large lawsuits involving thousands of plaintiffs that can serve as a guide for lawyers on both sides. "If, for example, all five bellwether cases are found for the plaintiffs, the defendant might take that as a sign that they will lose most, if not all, future litigation and settle with all the plaintiffs rather than facing potentially high jury awards and court costs," according to the website.
Chris Jennings, a lawyer with the Johnson Vines law firm, which also is working on the case, said, "The potential for damages are big."
Syngenta reported $13.4 billion in sales in 2015.
The Arkansas case will continue to be litigated in the Kansas court and before Lungstrum.
The lawsuit alleges that Syngenta committed "tortious interference" and negligence in its damage to Falwell's business. Falwell's case first alleged that Syngenta had violated federal racketeering laws, usually used to combat organized crime, but that tactic was later dropped.
Falwell and other Arkansas farmers are among plaintiffs who didn't buy or plant Syngenta's new corn seeds, called Agrisure Viptera and Duracade, which had been genetically modified to make it more resistant of the root worm and corn borer insects. But they claim the altered corn, which hadn't yet been approved by China for import, adulterated all other corn in the U.S., resulting in a crash of commodity prices.
Falwell's case, like many others, allege Syngenta began marketing the corn in 2011 even though many foreign markets hadn't yet approved -- or had banned -- imports of modified seed and byproducts.
China, a burgeoning market for corn growers in the United States, was among those countries, but Syngenta assured farmers and others in agribusiness that China's approval was imminent and continued to sell the grain, according to the lawsuits.
By November 2013, inspectors in other countries discovered genetically altered grain mixed with nonaltered grain and halted the U.S. imports, causing corn prices to drop from $7 a bushel to $3. China rejected more than 131 million bushels, according to the lawsuits. All those other countries, including China, eventually allowed importation of the altered grain.
"In this case, plaintiffs request purely economic damages and, thus there is no emotional factor or physical injury that might otherwise provide a reason for class members to wish to control their own cases," Lungstrum wrote in dismissing Syngenta's opposition to class certification.
Lungstrum noted there are "tens of thousands of putative class members" who haven't filed suit individually, and that any farmer who is now lumped in with the class lawsuit can choose to opt out.
Business on 09/28/2016