Beth Ann Bauer

Practice Details

• Firm Information
  Position

  Partner

  Firm Name

  HeplerBroom LLC
• Representative Cases & Transactions
  Cases

  Representative/Recent Case Results: Ms. Bauer has spent most of her time recently defending a major personal care products manufacturer in litigation in which each plaintiff claims that her perineal use of body powder caused her ovarian cancer. Over 1600 of these claims are filed in the City of St. Louis as well as additional claims pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri
  Madison County, Illinois. Two of these jurisdictions appear regularly in the top 10 of ATRA's annual Judicial Hellhole list.
  Recently, she led a team to remove many of these claims to federal court on diversity grounds, arguing that many plaintiffs were fraudulently misjoined. Her team was successful in arguing that the cases should stay in federal court, despite difficult Eighth Circuit precedent,
  many such claims have been transferred to a MDL proceeding in New Jersey rather than being rem
  ed to one of the toughest jurisdictions in the country.
  Ms. Bauer was part of the team defending against plaintiff's claims that her perineal use of talcum powder caused her ovarian cancer. Plaintiff asked for tens of millions of dollars in compensatory
  punitive damages. The jury returned a defense verdict. (Nora Daniels v. Johnson & Johnson, et al., St. Louis City Circuit Court, Missouri, March 2017)
  Ms. Bauer represents WRB Refining LP (a joint venture of Phillips 66
  Cenovus Energy) in property tax matters. Recently, she worked with a team to achieve a multi-million dollar long-term settlement agreement that provided increased revenue for local taxing bodies
  provided certainty for budgeting
  business planning for her client. The settlement also resolved many related litigation matters Ms. Bauer was h
  ling for WRB Refining before the Property Tax Appeal Board, Illinois Department of Revenue, Illinois Pollution Control Board,
  tax objection cases against certain local taxing bodies in Madison County, Illinois. (WRB Refining Property Tax Litigation)
  During the course of the litigation, Ms. Bauer successfully argued to the Illinois Supreme Court that the taxing bodies had no st
  ing to intervene in the Illinois Pollution Control Board's proceedings to award tax certifications for pollution control facilities installed by her client for which they were entitled under Illinois law to favorable tax treatment. (Board of Education of Roxana Community School Dist. No. 1 v. The Pollution Control Board, et al., 2013 IL 115473.)