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Retired farmer files class-action suit against Monsanto
(Monday, Feb. 9, 2004 -- CropChoice news) -- Michael Shaw, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 02/05/04:
Start with a simple soybean.
Add a gene that resists pesticide and a patent to protect the invention.
Allow farmhands to sign their bosses' names to contracts accepting terms
limiting reuse of the seed -- and you've got a potential forgery.
Patent? Forgery?
This is the complex world that retired Southern Illinois farmer Eugene
Stratemeyer and his lawyer have entered with a lawsuit they hope will be a
thorn in the side of Monsanto Co. of Creve Coeur.
The lawyer, Ron Osman of Marion, Ill., went to federal court in East St.
Louis on Wednesday, hoping to certify a class-action suit against Monsanto
over what even the company admits are some improperly signed contracts.
Osman and Stratemeyer lost a case to Monsanto in 2002, when a jury in the
same court decided the farmer willfully violated the patent on the
herbicide-resistant soybeans -- called Roundup Ready -- that dominate the
marketplace.
Monsanto insists that under its agreement with buyers, the farmers must buy
new seeds every season. The company has won millions of dollars suing
farmers who harvested modified seed from the previous crop for reuse. Some
have been blacklisted, with sellers told not to deal with them.
Stratemeyer, of Metropolis, Ill., lost only $14,000 in damages, a fraction
of what some farmers have been ordered to pay. Monsanto wants that award
tripled, and also is asking reimbursement of lawyers' fees.
Osman, a specialist in whistleblower cases who owns farmland in Illinois
and Brazil, and Stratemeyer are striking back with the proposed class action.
It seeks to force Monsanto to go through thousands of its contracts to
determine how many are "forged" -- meaning that someone signed the buyers'
name without authority to do so. And it wants the court to order the
company never to use such forged agreements against the farmers in any way.
The suit doesn't seek any money.
Monsanto lawyers admit that some of the contracts don't bear authentic
signatures. The company says the forgeries were committed by retail
suppliers of the seed, not Monsanto itself.
No one claims the contracts were forged with criminal intent. For example,
farm hands who picked up seed may have signed the farmers' names for
convenience, without thinking to get permission. On at least one of
Stratemeyer's contracts, his last name was misspelled.
James Monafo, lawyer for Monsanto, said Wednesday that examining every
signature would be costly and pointless.
"We're not using the contracts," he said. "It's not happening. It would be
stupid to do so."
U.S. District Judge Michael J. Reagan will decide, perhaps next month,
whether to certify the farmers as a class.
He quizzed both sides Wednesday, asking Monafo, "Wouldn't Monsanto want to
know which (contracts) are valid and which ones aren't?"
Monafo replied, perhaps obliquely, that the company was out only to
"protect the farmer."
Reagan also wondered about the value of the class-action suit, repeatedly
asking Osman, "How is Mr. Stratemeyer harmed by any of this?"
Osman cited principle, saying there are reputations at stake. | |
