Gray Ritter Graham Attorneys Recipients of 2019 Missouri Lawyers Weekly Awards for Top Settlement and Top Verdict in 2018

Gray Ritter Graham attorneys Don Downing and Tom Neill have been named recipients of a 2019 Missouri Lawyers Award for their 2018 achievements by Missouri Lawyers Weekly.

Downing was one of the co-lead plaintiffs’ counsel team that obtained a $217.7 million verdict in 2017 that led to a $1.51 billion settlement in 2018 for U.S. corn farmers and related businesses in a nationwide class action lawsuit with Syngenta over the company’s marketing and commercialization of Agrisure Viptera and Agrisure Duracade corn seeds (Syngenta AG MIR162 Corn Litigation).  Missouri Lawyers Weekly recognized it as the Top Plaintiffs’ Settlement in 2018.  Patrick Stueve of the Kansas City law firm Stueve Siegel Hanson, LLP was one of the other co-lead plaintiffs’ counsel.

Neill was one of the attorneys who in July 2018 won a $4.69 billion verdict on behalf of 22 plaintiffs who were suing Johnson & Johnson over its asbestos-laden talcum (Ingham et al. v. Johnson & Johnson).  Five of the plaintiffs lost family members to cancer as a result of using talcum baby powder marketed and manufactured by Johnson & Johnson.  Other plaintiffs, who were long-term users of the baby power, either are suffering from cancer or overcame the disease after extensive treatment.  The verdict was named by the newspaper as the Top Plaintiffs’ Verdict of 2018.  Neill was part of a trial team led by Mark Lanier of Houston and Eric Holland of St. Louis.

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Posted in News January 9, 2019