Products Liability Law Reporter

The Sky Valley Education Center, a former middle school in Monroe, Wash., had leaking polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)-containing light ballasts and caulking, resulting in PCB exposure for multiple students, teachers, and others. Employees and staff members of the center developed various health problems, including lupus, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, autoimmune encephalitis, and chronic toxic encephalopathy.

Eight of these individuals sued Pharmacia LLC, whose predecessor was Monsanto Co., alleging negligence. Suit also claimed that the defendant had failed to adequately warn of the danger and supplied a product that was not reasonably safe as designed. The plaintiffs asserted that although Monsanto knew in the 1930s that PCBs were toxic, the company promoted them for commercial use without warnings and continued to manufacture them despite knowing since the 1960s that they were causing environmental contamination.

The jury awarded more than $165.08 million, including punitive damages.

Citation: Heit v. Pharmacia LLC, No. 2018-2-55641-4 (Wash. Super. Ct. King Cnty. Nov. 20, 2023).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ members Kenneth R. Friedman, Sean J. Gamble, Henry G. Jones, James A. Hertz, and Richard H. Friedman, all of Bremerton, Wash.; AAJ members Ronald J. Park, Darrell L. Cochran, and Andrew S. Ulmer, all of Seattle; and AAJ member Colleen Durkin Peterson, AAJ member Alexander G. Dietz, and Thomas B. Vertetis, all of Tacoma, Wash.

Defense experts: Michael McCoy, industrial hygiene, Milwaukee, Wis.; Nadia Moore, toxicology and industrial hygiene, Redmond, Wash.; and Court Sandau, chemistry, Calgary, Alberta.