SASKATOON — Syngenta has reportedly entered into an agreement to settle thousands of U.S. lawsuits alleging that its paraquat herbicide causes Parkinson’s disease.
The chemical company and lead counsel for thousands of plaintiffs have signed an agreement to resolve the litigation, according to an article published by UnSpun.
Details of the proposed settlement were not released.
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Daniel Bach, partner with Siskinds, a Toronto law firm that represents plaintiffs in two Canadian class action lawsuits against Syngenta, said it is unclear if the proposed U.S. settlement will prove helpful for the Canadian cases.
“As a general proposition, if there’s a settlement in one place, there will often be a settlement in other places, but not always,” he said.
There have been cases that have been successfully settled in one jurisdiction but not in the other, so it’s hard to tell right now.
“At this stage, we don’t know anything about the settlement. It might be great, it might be not great,” said Bach.
“I haven’t seen anything in the public domain that says how much money we’re talking about or any of the dynamics at play.”
Terms of the U.S. settlement should be made available within 30 days of the April 14 agreement.
“The move to settle comes amid mounting calls to ban paraquat from both state and federal lawmakers, and as a growing number of Parkinson’s patients blame the company for not warning them of paraquat risks,” stated the UnSpun story.
The agreement would resolve the majority of the more than 5,800 lawsuits pending in the multidistrict litigation being overseen by a federal court in Illinois.
Bach said there are two class action lawsuits in Canada — one in Quebec and the other in British Columbia.
The Quebec case is for Quebecers. It has been certified and is now in the discovery phase.
The B.C. case is for all other Canadians. It was certified, but the defendant has appealed parts of that certification order. The appeal will be heard on May 8.
Bach encouraged people who have worked with paraquat and later developed Parkinson’s to contact his law firm.
It is unclear how many people will be part of the Canadian class action lawsuits because plaintiffs do not have to come forward in advance of litigation like they do in the United States.
Bach noted that the U.S. settlement agreement is not a fait accompli.
“There’s a big distance between someone announcing a potential settlement and that actually getting implemented,” he said.
However, he will be keenly following all the developments with the paraquat case south of the border.
“I would say that the case getting to a resolution in the States is good for people in the States and it’s good for us probably, but we just don’t know yet,” said Bach.
