Two races for circuit court vacancies in St. Clair County have Democrat candidates leading Republican candidates in campaign financing by large margins due primarily to contributions from local and Chicago plaintiff lawyers.
Even though overall voter turnout was low in Tuesday's primary in St. Clair County (15%) and in East St. Louis (22%), Republicans were clearly more motivated to cast ballots.
Tillery
BELLEVILLE – Stephen Tillery, ready for trial on a claim that weed killer paraquat caused four plaintiffs to suffer Parkinson’s disease, won the biggest judgment ever in an American trial and lost it at the Illinois Supreme Court.
In 2003, after a bench trial, late Madison County judge Nicholas Byron awarded more than $10 billion to a class of cigarette smokers Tillery represented.
The few American cases with higher judgments, such as state tobacco litigation in the 1990s and Deepwater Horizon explosion suits, ended in settlement.
Tillery retreated from the field of class actions after the state Supreme Court and Congress restricted them, though he has returned as ambitious as ever.
Hoerner
BELLEVILLE – Associate Judge Kevin Hoerner plans to hold St. Clair County’s first civil jury trial in a year for six clients of Stephen Tillery, who contributed $11,100 to Hoerner’s campaign for appellate judge in 2018.
Hoerner has set proceedings to begin April 12, on Tillery’s claim that weed killer paraquat causes Parkinson’s disease.
Five of his six plaintiffs don’t live in St. Clair County.
Tillery sued Syngenta, Growmark, and Chevron for 11 plaintiffs in 2017.
Chief Judge Andrew Gleeson assigned the suit to former judge Vincent Lopinot.
Gleeson stood for retention in 2018, and Tillery gave his campaign $10,000.
In December 2018, Lopinot retired and Gleeson assigned himself to the suit.