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Agricultural Losses

Farmers and landowners have suffered billions of dollars in agricultural losses due to the irresponsible conduct of major international seed and pesticide manufacturers. Time and again, Watts Guerra has been there for them.

Our firm represents over 45,000 farmers, farm landowners, grain elevators, and ethanol plants in their lawsuit against Syngenta Corporation for its improper introduction of a genetically-modified corn strain known as MIR-162. We have filed hundreds of their lawsuits in federal courts, and are litigating those cases in MDL-2591 in Kansas City. We have also filed more than 40,000 lawsuits for farmers in Minnesota state courts. In that consolidated proceeding, the Court named Watts Guerra’s capital partner, Frank Guerra, as co-lead counsel over the entire litigation. Billions of dollars in claims are being litigated with Watts Guerra at the helm.

Watts Guerra has worked diligently for over a year to inform farmers of their rights in this case. First, we produced an infomercial to get critical information about their rights out to the farmers.

Second, we have prepared television advertisements to inform farmers about their rights.

Next, Watts Guerra has a large staff at our mass tort office, a staff assembled to process the cases of a large number of clients at once. Their job is to file each case, to collect from each client the documents required, and to make certain that the defendants and the Court are supplied with the documentation needed to prove your case.

Finally, we have conducted hundreds of town hall meetings with farmers in order to directly provide them with information, and to personally answer their questions about the case.

When rice farmers lost billions of dollars because Bayer negligently introduced a non-approved genetically-modified rice strain into the U.S. export market, we worked with others to bring thousands of lawsuits against Bayer. Mikal Watts personally negotiated with Bayer the first of two settlement documents, which collectively settled the cases filed against Bayer by approximately 11,000 rice farmers.

When Dupont’s grass herbicide Imprelis was introduced without adequate testing, it killed thousands of valuable spruce and other softwood trees. Our firm represented scores of landowners in their lawsuit against Dupont and kept their claims from being settled for inadequate sums in a class action settlement pushed by others. We brought these claims together with the very lawyers who previously preserved the rights of farmers to bring suit against herbicide manufacturers for failing to protect farmers’ crops through proper packaging information. While others quit after a Court said such claims were preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), our partner in these cases pushed forward all the way to the United States Supreme Court and changed the law for the good forever. See Bates v. Dow Agrosciences, LLC, 544 U.S. 431 (2005).

At Watts Guerra, we remain committed to protecting the legal rights of the American farmer.

Case Type Injury Settlement Amount Attorney Fees Expenses Net to Client
Farming Product Trade Disruption 145,745,053 54,553,764 735,890 90,455,399
Farming Product Injury to Trees 3,750,000 1,500,000 177,856 2,072,144
Settlement Amount Attorney Fees Expenses Net to Client
Total 149,495,053 56,053,764 913,746 92,527,543