Lawyers for DuPont Co once wrote that confidential company information about its Benlate fungicide might come out if a Miami law firm kept pursuing claims over the product, says an attorney for a family suing the No. 2 chemical maker.
The disclosure, in a Florida state court yesterday, may provide a new motive for a secret US$6.4 million payment DuPont gave in 1996 to the law firm so it wouldn't sue the chemical company again over Benlate. Jerry Gilley and his mother, Doris, are suing their former lawyers over the hidden payment.
The Gilleys said they were improperly kept in the dark about the US$6.4 million six years ago when they settled a claim that Benlate harmed crops on their farm. Their new lawyer, William Custer, read aloud in court yesterday from what he said were memos and notes DuPont lawyers wrote in the weeks before the settlement with the Gilleys and others.
According to Custer, the memo by DuPont's outside attorneys said that unless the Miami lawyers were stopped, their efforts to learn about the fungicide through lawsuits "will broaden, accelerate and lead to possible sanctions, and a possible loss of confidentiality" of certain scientific data.
The memo "is all old stuff," DuPont spokesman Mike Ricciuto said today. He called it "a couple of plaintiffs' lawyers' accusations based on very selective information."
The Gilleys are suing DuPont and their own former lawyers, the now-defunct Miami firm of Friedman, Rodriguez, Ferraro & St. Louis. Both sides say DuPont paid the Gilleys' lawyers to ensure the law firm would never sue again over Benlate.
DuPont and the lawyers deny the payment was meant as a settlement incentive. It was intended to ensure that the Friedman Rodriguez lawyers would not use the fees they got from the settlement to finance more Benlate litigation, says DuPont, which is second in sales to Dow Chemical Co.
The Gilleys, whose farm is near Tampa, Florida, say DuPont and the law firm defrauded and coerced them into accepting the US$1.1 million settlement. Their malpractice suit against the law firm forced disclosure of the US$6.4 million payment in 1999.
Their case against DuPont was among 20 the Friedman Rodriguez firm settled in 1996 for a total of US$59 million in damages from the chemical company. Plaintiffs in 19 of those cases have either filed their own suits or want to join the Gilleys' suit, Custer said in court.
The Gilleys are seeking the money their former lawyers received from the Aug. 6, 1996, settlement, plus punitive damages.
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