The People Who Just Went To Work

Picture the Clark County Government Center on a normal morning. A clerk walks in and sits down at her desk. A facilities worker runs a mop along the hallway floor. An administrator takes the elevator to the third floor. They are not miners. They are not chemical plant workers. They did not sign anything acknowledging industrial exposure. They are government employees who showed up to do their jobs in a building their employer told them was safe.

Beneath their feet, beneath the concrete foundation, sat decades of contamination left over from when this same ground was a railroad yard. Union Pacific allegedly poured diesel fuel and industrial waste into that soil. Mixed into that waste were PCBs, chemicals so persistent they do not break down. They migrate through soil. They get into the air. They settle on surfaces. They enter the body through skin contact, through inhalation, through ingestion. You do not have to know they are there for them to be doing damage.

The old Monsanto Company knew all of this. The lawsuit says Monsanto knew PCBs would remain a contaminant for decades after their release and would pose a health risk to any individuals who could be expected to be present at those locations in the future. They had this information. They kept it from the public. They kept it from their customers. They kept it from the government agencies that might have stopped them. And they kept selling.

Congress banned PCB production in the late 1970s, but by then the damage was done. Decades of industrial use had seeded sites across the country, including one that would eventually be dug up, paved over, and handed to Clark County as a place to put a government building. The 169 people who worked inside that building are now listed in a federal lawsuit as having suffered neurological disorders, cancer, and in some cases, death. These are not abstractions. These are people with families, mortgages, sick days they used up, doctors they could not afford. They trusted that the building their employer put them in was not killing them. That trust was wrong.

The corporate successors to the company that made these chemicals are now engaged in a multi-year legal battle over which courtroom gets to handle the case. Every month that battle continues is another month these workers wait. Some of them may not live to see a verdict.

What the Court Record Actually Says

The Ninth Circuit’s December 29, 2025 opinion is a procedural ruling, but the factual record embedded in it is a document of corporate conduct. These are direct quotes from the court, drawn from the complaint the workers filed.

Old Monsanto “knew or should have known that the PCBs would be released in locations where they were used, would remain a contaminant for decades after their release, and would pose a health risk to any individuals who could be expected to be present at those locations in the future.” Nevertheless, it continued to “produce, market, distribute, and sell its PCBs” while “hiding from the public, its customers, and applicable government authorities the true health risks associated with PCBs.”

• What this proves: The knowledge element. Monsanto is not accused of recklessness or negligence in the ordinary sense. The complaint alleges they had specific, operational knowledge that PCBs would contaminate future sites and endanger future people, and chose continued profit over disclosure.
• What this admits: The concealment was targeted. Monsanto hid this information from three separate audiences: the general public, its direct industrial customers who bought and used the product, and the government regulators who had the legal authority to stop them.
• The phrase “continued to” is load-bearing. This was not a one-time failure to warn. The court record describes an ongoing commercial decision, maintained across years of production and sales.

Old Monsanto sold PCBs as “liquid mixtures” to a “variety of industrial customers, for a variety of industrial uses.” Those mixtures were “incorporated into many other products,” including products “routinely used by [Union Pacific] and other Railroad companies at rail yard sites,” such as “hydraulic lubricants, insulators for transformers, capacitors, paints, various solvents, cements, sealants, adhesives, [and] caulk.”

• What this proves: PCBs were not a fringe industrial chemical. They were embedded into the materials of everyday industrial infrastructure: the lubricants keeping equipment running, the paint on the walls, the caulk sealing the joints. Contamination was structural, not incidental.
• What this shows about scale: Rail yards exist in every major American city. The same products used at the Union Pacific site in Las Vegas were used at rail yards in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, and hundreds of other locations. This is why the court ruled Nevada’s injuries were not uniquely local.

Plaintiffs allege that Old Monsanto sold “more than 99 percent of all PCBs . . . in the United States”—including to “a variety of industrial customers, for a variety of industrial uses”—and that products containing PCBs would “pose a health risk to any individuals who could be expected to be present” at the locations those products ended up.

• What this proves: Monsanto was not a supplier. Monsanto was the supplier. Ninety-nine percent market share means near-total responsibility for every PCB contamination site in the country. The workers in Las Vegas were harmed by the same corporate conduct that harmed workers everywhere else.
• The court noted that “dozens of cases have been filed against [Pharmacia] in States around the country, all based on injuries resulting from environmental contamination caused by PCBs sold and distributed by Old Monsanto.” This is a documented nationwide trail of harm, not an isolated incident.

Plaintiffs “asserted claims for compensatory and punitive damages based on their allegations that Union Pacific ‘contaminated the property with various toxic chemicals, including PCBs manufactured, sold, and distributed by Monsanto,’ and that Union Pacific and the Las Vegas Downtown Redevelopment Agency ‘failed to remediate the toxic materials’ before the land was transferred to Clark County.”

• What this shows about the chain of failure: At least three separate parties had the opportunity and, allegedly, the obligation to address this contamination before workers ever set foot in the building. Union Pacific contaminated the site. The Redevelopment Agency acquired it without cleaning it up. Clark County was handed the land without remediation. Every handoff was a missed opportunity to stop what happened next.
• Why punitive damages were included: Punitive damages in civil litigation are reserved for conduct that is intentional or reckless to a degree that shocks the conscience. The workers and their lawyers believe this meets that standard.

The Damage Extends Beyond 169 Names on a Lawsuit

Public Health

The injuries alleged in this case are the documented endpoint of a decades-long public health failure. The mechanism of harm, PCB contamination of industrial sites, was not a secret. Monsanto’s own conduct, as alleged, was the active suppression of that information.

• The specific harms alleged for the 169 plaintiffs include neurological disorders, cancer, and death. These are not mild or temporary conditions. Neurological damage can be permanent. Cancer treatment is expensive, brutal, and frequently fatal. Death is irreversible. These workers and their families are living with the medical, financial, and emotional consequences of alleged corporate concealment.
• PCBs are classified as probable human carcinogens by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. They are linked to liver cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and a range of neurological effects including memory impairment and developmental damage in children exposed in utero. These outcomes are documented in the scientific literature, which is why Congress banned PCB production.
• The decision to hide known health risks from government authorities meant that regulatory bodies that could have mandated earlier remediation of contaminated sites were operating without complete information. That information gap is not accidental. According to the complaint, it was maintained deliberately.
• The Ninth Circuit noted that “dozens of cases” against Pharmacia exist across the country based on PCB contamination injuries. The Las Vegas workers are one cluster in what appears to be a national pattern of harm from the same source: Monsanto’s PCB manufacturing and sales operation.
• Workers at government buildings are typically not provided occupational hazard training or protective equipment for environmental contamination below the foundation. They had no means to protect themselves from a hazard they did not know existed.

Economic Inequality

The financial dimensions of this case fall entirely on the people who had the least power to prevent the harm. The corporations that caused and enabled the contamination have the resources to sustain years of procedural litigation. The workers do not.

• Government employees at a county building are not high earners by any measure. Many are administrative staff, maintenance workers, and public service clerks. When they got sick, the cost of that illness, in medical bills, lost income, and reduced quality of life, landed on them and their families, not on the entities responsible for the contamination.
• The case has been in litigation since 2021 and is now entering a new phase in federal court after the December 2025 Ninth Circuit ruling. That is at minimum four years of legal proceedings before any trial on the merits. The workers are navigating this timeline while managing serious health conditions.
• The corporate successors to Old Monsanto, Pharmacia LLC, Solutia Inc., and Monsanto Co., are represented by Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, one of the most expensive corporate law firms in the United States, with offices in New York and Washington. The workers are represented by a small plaintiff’s firm and a solo practitioner. This is the standard resource asymmetry in cases like this.
• The procedural fight over jurisdiction (state court vs. federal court) is itself a tactic. Corporate defendants frequently prefer federal court in cases like this because federal courts are statistically less sympathetic to large damages awards in tort cases. Moving to federal court is a substantive legal strategy dressed as a procedural question.
• The property value and long-term tax base implications for Clark County are real but secondary to the human cost. The county acquired contaminated land, built a government building on it, and is now named as a defendant in the same lawsuit as its own former workers. The public funds spent defending this case are funds not spent on public services.

The Case Is Still Open. Here Is What Matters.

The Ninth Circuit’s December 29, 2025 ruling is a procedural step, sending this case to federal court rather than state court. The merits, whether these workers were poisoned, whether Monsanto’s corporate successors are liable, and what damages are owed, have not been decided. The fight is ongoing.

Named Parties in This Litigation

• Pharmacia LLC: Corporate successor to Old Monsanto. Named defendant-appellant in Case No. 25-6625. Represented by Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
• Solutia Inc.: Corporate successor to Old Monsanto. Named defendant-appellant in the same case.
• Monsanto Co.: Corporate successor to Old Monsanto. Named defendant-appellant in the same case. Now a subsidiary of Bayer AG.
• Union Pacific Railroad Company: Named defendant (not appellant). Allegedly dumped PCB-contaminated waste at the site.
• City of Las Vegas Downtown Redevelopment Agency: Named defendant (not appellant). Allegedly failed to remediate before transferring land to Clark County.

Regulatory Watchlist

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): The EPA has primary jurisdiction over PCB contamination under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the same law that banned PCB production in the late 1970s. Any remediation of the Clark County site falls under EPA oversight.
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): Workers exposed to toxic substances in the workplace have OSHA protections. If the contamination was knowable and no hazard disclosures were made to Clark County employees, this is an OSHA concern.
• Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP): The state-level environmental regulator with authority over Nevada contaminated sites. Their records on the Union Pacific rail yard site and any remediation orders are public documents.
• Department of Justice (DOJ): The DOJ has pursued criminal environmental cases against corporations for knowing concealment of toxic hazards. The conduct alleged here, specifically hiding known health risks from government authorities, is the type of conduct that can trigger federal criminal environmental statutes.

Mutual Aid, Organizing, and Direct Action

• If you worked at the Clark County Government Center: Contact the plaintiffs’ legal team. The case is a mass action with 169 named plaintiffs, and the attorneys of record are Lindsay A. Dibler (St. Louis, MO) and Craig A. Mueller (Las Vegas, NV). Your exposure may be legally relevant even if you are not currently a named plaintiff.
• Demand remediation status from Clark County: File public records requests with Clark County asking for all documentation on soil testing, environmental assessments, and remediation work at the Government Center site. This information belongs to the public.
• Contact your Nevada state legislators: Nevada has a direct interest in how this case proceeds. State legislators can push for independent environmental testing of the site, stronger disclosure requirements on land transfers, and funding for affected workers’ medical monitoring.
• Support environmental justice organizations that monitor PCB contamination cases nationwide. Organizations tracking Monsanto/Pharmacia PCB litigation include Earthjustice and the Center for Biological Diversity. These groups publish case updates and can direct resources to affected communities.
• Track this case: The federal docket number is 2:21-cv-01818-APG-VCF in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada. All filings are publicly accessible through PACER (pacer.gov). The next phase will determine whether a trial on the merits moves forward.