Sowing the Seeds of Dissent? 

Retired farmer files class-action lawsuit against Monsanto 

MICHAEL SHAW / St. Louis Post-Dispatch 5feb04

[More on Monsanto  |  Read about Percy Schmeiser]

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. Reporter Michael Shaw: E-mail: mshaw@post-dispatch.com Phone: 618-235-3988

source: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/emaf.nsf/Popup?ReadForm&db=stltoday%5Cbusiness%5Cstories.nsf&docid=6E5D9FCB9C7EEAB186256E3100380299 7feb04

Background on Stratemeyer

[Excerpted from: "Monsanto still suing Nelsons, other growers" by Robert Schubert CropChoice.com editor 21may01]

The Nelsons aren't the only farmers Monsanto is suing. Attorney Ronald E. Osman is defending Illinois farmer Eugene Stratemeyer against the company.

Before the 1998 planting season, Stratemeyer purchased Roundup Ready soybeans to plant on his farm. He paid the $6.50 per bag technology fee on top of the cost of the seed -- $16 to $17 per bag. However, Osman says, no one asked him to sign the technology agreement that disallows farmers from saving seed.

On July 4 and 14, 1998, a man showed up at Stratemeyer's farm and asked to buy some soybean seeds. Given that it was too late in the season to start a crop, the man said he wanted to grow the soybeans for erosion control. Reluctantly, Stratemeyer agreed to help him. He charged the man only enough to cover the cost of cleaning and bagging the seed -- $7 a bag for enough seeds to plant 140 bushels.

After testing and verifying that those seeds were Roundup Ready, Monsanto officials went to the U.S. District Court, eastern district of Missouri, a judicial forum that has been favorable to the company in the past, Osman says. The judge, with only himself and company lawyers present, issued a temporary restraining order on Stratemeyer.

Monsanto officials proceeded to Stratemeyer's farm where they seized the soybeans he had harvested and notified him of its lawsuit on the grounds of patent infringement and breach of contract. As the technology agreement stipulates, the trial was to take place in St. Louis. In late 1998, Osman succeeded in getting the venue for the trial changed to the U.S. District Court for the southern district of Illinois. The class-action counterclaim against Monsanto, for which Stratemeyer is the only representative to date, is filed under the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act.

Monsanto didn't have what it needed to take its case to court-- a document stating that he knew better than to save the seeds. So, company agents forged his signature -- even misspelling his name in the process -- on a technology agreement. The agents later admitted to forging (long prior to the lawsuit) his and many other farmers' signatures, Osman says.

In response to this document, which remains in the court record, Monsanto attorneys argue that there was an implied contract, he says. In other words, they say that it's common knowledge that Monsanto doesn’t allow growers to save its seeds. To prove this claim, they produced a grower redemption form stating that Stratemeyer had received free pesticide spraying on 50 acres. Problem was, it too was forged.

Stratemeyer believes he has the right to save seed for his own use. He purchased more Roundup Ready soybean seed in 1999 and 2002, paid the technology fees, and never saw a technology agreement.

"You can go almost anyplace in Illinois and buy Roundup Ready soybeans without anyone saying anything about technology agreements," says Osman, who is also a farmer.

Stratemeyer's counterclaim against Monsanto has turned into a class-action lawsuit on behalf of farmers throughout Illinois who purchased Roundup Ready soybeans and whose names Monsanto forged on its technology agreements, he says. The suit is filed under the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act.

The 2001 technology agreements are stricter in that Monsanto can go to the Farm Service Agency to check records on soybean and corn acreage. Then it can check with seed and chemical dealers to know how much Roundup herbicide the farmer purchased. Plus, in 2001 they want growers to agree to seed arbitration rather than filing a lawsuit. Monsanto prefers this because it imposes shorter time limits on the farmers.

Farmers band together to take on Monsanto in another case, thousands of corn and soybean farmers are involved in a class-action lawsuit against Monsanto in the eastern district of Missouri. This case is based on anti-trust and environmental claims brought under the nuisance and consumer fraud act.

They are seeking anti-trust damages for price fixing and other anti-competitive conduct, says lead attorney Richard Lewis, who expects to receive a trial date in late spring. When it comes to environmental claims they're seeking economic damages for farmers who've been hurt due to regulatory and consumer rejection of genetically modified crops. They are also seeking adequate environmental and human health testing of transgenic crops.

source: http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=326 7feb04