City of Pomona v. SQM North America Corp.

Environmental Contamination

Central District

U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner

$48 Million

Plaintiffs Attorneys: Irell & Manella Llp: Jason G. Sheasby, Lisa S. Glasser; Sl Environmental Group: Kenneth A. Sansone, Alexander I. Leff, Seth D. Mansergh

Defense Attorneys: Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard And Smith Llp, Michael K. Johnson, R. Gaylord Smith

Jason G. Sheasby

From the early 1800s, Pomona's thousands of acres of citrus groves flourished. The city itself was named for a Roman goddess of fruit trees. Beginning in 1927, the Chilean mining company defendant Sociedad Química y Minera North America Corp., known as SQM, shipped to Pomona tons of the nitrogen-rich fertilizer perchlorate the trees needed for successful growth. Perchlorate's toxic nature caused California to begin its regulation in 2007; Pomona, seeking to recoup the millions it spent on contaminated water treatment, sued in 2011.

Three trials and two appeals later, lawyers at SL Environmental Law Group PC--joined for the third trial by co-counsel from Irell & Manella LLP--prevailed, obtaining a $48.1 million damages verdict in September 2021. City of Pomona v. SQM North America Corp., 2:11-cv-00167 (C.D. Cal., filed Jan. 6, 2011).

"It took perseverance by my firm and the city," said SL Environmental Law Group partner Kenneth A. Sansone, whose firm originally filed the case and successfully appealed twice. Sansone co-led the third trial's plaintiff team with Irell & Manella LLP lawyers Lisa S. Glasser and Jason G. Sheasby. The earlier defeats were reversed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over faulty witness exclusion and jury instruction issues. "It was very expensive to install that treatment plant, and the city needed to get the company responsible to clean up the perchlorate instead of the taxpayers," Sansone said.

The jury deliberated less than a day following a week-long trial. One key to the win was the introduction of a new witness, a history professor who wrote about the links between Chile and California agriculture. "Our paralegal Fred Martini discovered him," Sansone said. "He made the history come alive for the jury." A second witness, a professor of geochemistry, used a unique isotopic signature in the fertilizer to trace Pomona's perchlorate to its source in a Chilean desert. That professor's exclusion from the first trial and limits placed on his testimony at the second trial were partly the basis for Pomona's successful appeals.

Said Sheasby, "The case involved the work of one of the leading geochemists in the world, using some of the most advanced isotopic analysis currently available. It also involved archives from the last century held in the basement of the Pomona public library, interpreted by an expert on the Chilean-California nitrate fertilizer trade. We were able to use 21st century technology to unlock one mystery from many decades ago. "

R. Gaylord Smith of Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith LLP, who led SQM North America Corp.'s defense, declined to comment. The defense's new trial motion is pending.

- John Roemer

Lisa S. Glasser