Dow filed a petition in the Supreme Court, arguing that the judgment violated class action law in multiple ways, particularly with respect to two rulings authored by Justice Scalia, one in 2011 favoring Wal-Mart Stores Inc and another in 2013 favoring Comcast Corp. As the Alliance for Justice has documented, time and again, the Roberts Court has issued 5-4 rulings that protect big corporations from liability, limit access to justice for workers and consumers, and allow companies to evade regulations on the environment, racial and gender discrimination, and monopolistic practices. However, the mistake I believe the Republicans are making is that they are gambling that the next president and the new Senate will have a Republican majority.
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Carter Phillips, the attorney who represented Dow Chemical at the Supreme Court, said he had several other cases in the pipeline that could be similarly affected by Justice Scalia’s absence. Should Congress succeed in its efforts, a new Supreme Court Justice would not be selected until 2017, leaving potential suits and appeals susceptible to a stalemate between the eight-member bench.
“It is unlikely that any nominee will be as favorable to business as Justice Scalia was”, Gordon said in an e-mail.
Dow said the agreement depends on the Supreme Court agreeing to postpone an action Dow bought asking it to look at the decision taken by the District Court in Kansas to fine Dow $1.1 billion.
That year, a federal-court jury in Kansas City, Kansas, awarded urethane purchasers $400 million in damages over claims that Dow engaged in price fixing.
But on Friday the company announced that it is settling the case for $835 million. The final judgment in the case was reduced to reflect $139 million in settlements with the other defendants before trial.
The case started in 2005 with allegations that Dow plotted with BASF SE, Huntsman International LLC and Lyondell Chemical Co.in violation of federal law. Dow’s integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 180 countries and in high-growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. That’s how much the US chemicals company is paying in a decade-old suit that was heading to the top court.
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The company said “it continues to strongly believe that it was not part of any conspiracy and the judgment was fundamentally flawed as a matter of class action law”.
