Latest news with #MeadJohnsonNutrition
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Some Zeeland neighbors want to block Mead Johnson expansion
ZEELAND, Mich. (WOOD) — While some property owners have gotten more than $1 million from Mead Johnson for land that the company needs to expand on East Main Street, Margie and Earl Klein aren't selling. Some neighbors say they hope the holdouts will help block the expansion, which they fear will destroy their neighborhood. The Kleins have lived since 1973 in their home about 150 yards west of the baby formula plant — at the heart of the company's controversial expansion plans. They raised two kids there. Her parents lived there in the 1920s. 'We still walk on the hardwood floors that my parents did,' Margie Klein said on Friday. In January, she answered a knock on her door. It was a stranger from Mead Johnson. 'He sat down on our couch and said, 'We want your property.' 'Really?' 'And all of this on both sides of you, and we want everything on Washington Avenue, also,'' she recalled. Mead Johnson, now owned by a United Kingdom-based company, says it needs to modernize. Its $836 million plan calls for an expansion that would mean leveling several homes on the north side of East Main Street, including the Kleins'. The company, which makes Enfamil, released renderings at a meeting this week. The plan requires the city to rezone some of the land from residential to industrial. A hearing is scheduled before the city's Planning Commission Thursday. The company is the third-biggest taxpayer in Zeeland and employs 500 people. 'Mead Johnson Nutrition takes pride in our deep roots in the Zeeland community where we have been producing some of the nation's most trusted baby formula products for more than 100 years,' the company said in a statement released on Friday. 'This investment in modernizing our operations in Zeeland reflects our commitment to sustained job creation and economic growth here in our local community, while also ensuring we maintain industry-leading quality standards and remain a trusted partner in pediatric nutrition.' 'Mead Johnson is important to the community, we want to keep them here,' City Manager Timothy Klunder said. 'We certainly don't want to see a desire where they would have to leave, but we also want then to do it in the right way.' Neighbors have planted signs and launched a website in opposition. Already, the company has bought out most of the Kleins' closest neighbors: One said he sold his home for $600,000 and must be out by July 31. Property records show the company paid $1.5 million for a house and barn a few doors away with an assessed value of less than $300,000. Two properties around the corner went for a combined $3.7 million — about 10 times their assessed value. The Kleins won't say exactly how much Mead Johnson has offered. It's somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million. 'We love our place, but we don't want to sell to Mead Johnson because they are pushy and demanding,' Klein said. Asked if she was holding out for more money, she responded: 'Oh heavens, no.' 'This has nothing to do with the money,' she continued. 'It's the whole principle of the thing. We have lived here for decades. We are so involved in the city of Zeeland, chamber of commerce back in the day. We love this town.' Jonathan Funckes lives on the south side of East Main Street. His home would face the expanded factory. 'I'll be looking at Industrial 2 (zoning),' he said. 'When we bought this, this was all residential.' When Funckes moved in 16 years ago, he said, the neighborhood was mostly rentals, some marred by graffiti. 'We've all in the last dozen years really improved it and brought the neighborhood up and are doing things to improve and make it look better, only to have the city just destroy our property values,' he said. Some neighbors said they fear city leaders have already decided. 'Why would you purchase these (properties) way above tax-assessed values if you didn't have some sort of promise?' Sue VandenBeldt, who lives a few doors away. 'My concern is that the city has sold our neighborhood out. I think my big concern is that we've lost trust in our officials we elected.' As for Jonathan Funckes, 'We're going to be fighting it, but at this point I'm preparing to sell, because I've had enough.' Perhaps, he said, the best hope is the Kleins not selling. 'That's the only saving grace at this point,' he said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Business Wire
20-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Landmark Olson Grimsley Premature Infant Formula Case Earns Place in Law.com's Top 100 Verdicts of 2024
DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Olson Grimsley has earned a place on Top 100 Verdicts of 2024 for its groundbreaking $60 million trial victory against Mead Johnson Nutrition, the manufacturer of Enfamil Premature Formula. On March 13, 2024, the company was found liable for negligence and failing to warn of the risk that its cow's milk-based formula could cause necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in premature infants. A St. Clair, Ill., jury returned the verdict after less than two hours of deliberation, awarding plaintiff Jasmine Watson $60 million for the loss of her baby, Chance Dean, to NEC. 'This case was about obtaining justice for Jasmine, who will never get her son back,' said Olson Grimsley partner Sean Grimsley, who led the trial team. 'It was also about holding Mead Johnson and other companies accountable for their negligence so that no other family has to endure what the Watsons went through.' The trial was the first among hundreds of lawsuits nationwide claiming the formula caused NEC, an intestinal disease that affects mostly premature babies. The Olson Grimsley trial team of Mr. Grimsley, partner Kenzo Kawanabe, partner Abby Hinchcliff, associate Samara Hoose and litigation manager Beth Costner served as lead trial counsel, partnering with Ben Whiting and Amelia Frankel of Keller Postman LLC and Dave Cates of The Cates Law Firm, LLC. Top 100 Verdicts are compiled by VerdictSearch, which ranks verdicts by gross award calculated by the jury. To view the full list, click here. The case was Watson, et al. v. Mead Johnson & Co. LLC, Case No. 2021L001032 in the Circuit Court of the 20th Judicial District in St. Clair County, Illinois. About Olson Grimsley Olson Grimsley Kawanabe Hinchcliff & Murray LLC is a national law firm headquartered in Denver, with the mission of holding the powerful to account. Before founding the firm, the team of talented litigators handled some of the country's most significant civil rights, antitrust, mass tort, consumer, intellectual property, and environmental cases in courthouses from California to New York, and from rural Arkansas to the U.S. Supreme Court. They are now focusing their expertise on advocating for clients in their most consequential trials and appeals nationwide. More:
