More than 8,700 lawsuits are now pending against Monsanto over the glyphosate-based weed killer.
Another lawsuit is set to go to trial in St. Louis in October 2018.
August 10, 2018 (upheld October 2018, but verdict reduced) – San Francisco jury orders Monsanto to pay $289 million in damages to Dewayne Johnson, the 46-year-old school groundskeeper diagnosed with terminal non-Hodgkin lymphoma, who used Roundup more than 30 times per year to spray the fields while working.
The jurors deliberated for over two hours before finding that Mr. Johnson’s cancer was at least partly due to glyphosate exposure — the main ingredient in the popular weed killer.
This was the first lawsuit alleging glyphosate causes cancer to go to trial.
Plaintiff’s attorneys noted that this verdict was a “day of reckoning” for Monsanto.
This landmark verdict survived appeal in October 2018 but the California judge decreased the punitive damages won taking the total verdict awarded to groundskeeper DeWayne Johnson $78.5 million.
Judge Bolanos limited the award based on his reading of a Supreme Court case that requires a one-to-one ratio between compensatory and punitive damages.
Since the jury awarded Johnson $39.25 million in compensatory damages, Judge Bolanos reduced punitive damages to match that amount.
Judge Bolanos also noted that it was reasonable for the jury to conclude that Monsanto acted with malice by continuing to market and sell a dangerous product without a warning.
Monsanto continues to deny the link between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Monsanto Roundup Lawsuits received the court’s blessing to move forward!
The Honorable Vince Chabria, the federal judge in San Francisco, ruled in favor of the thousands of individuals diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma as a result of Roundup use.
Monsanto requested to dismiss cases but Judge Chabria held that plaintiffs put forth reliable scientific evidence that exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller can cause cancer.
We look forward to giving our clients their day in court!
Two trials for Roundup Lawsuits in St. Louis county are scheduled to begin in the coming months. Both cases revolve around plaintiffs who had used Roundup for more than a decade and subsequently received diagnoses of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Meanwhile, the Roundup MDL, which is centralized in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, is ongoing with more than 4,000 individual Roundup Lawsuits consolidated under its jurisdiction.
A trial in a Missouri state court is about to start opening statements, focusing on allegations that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide is linked to cancer.
This trial is receiving considerable attention, given that previous trials have favored Monsanto’s stance, contending that the chemical glyphosate in Roundup is not a carcinogen and that the plaintiffs’ illnesses are attributed to other factors.
This trial is taking place in St. Louis County, where Monsanto had previously received a favorable defense verdict in a similar case. The recent ruling by the Missouri Supreme Court has amplified the importance of this trial. Some Roundup cases will continue to be heard in St. Louis City, and there is another trial scheduled for early October. Additionally, there is another Roundup trial slated for later this month in San Diego.
Monsanto has resolved more than 100,000 cases related to Roundup, resulting in payments of around $11 billion. This sum encompasses roughly 80% of the total Roundup claims that were submitted. However, a substantial 30,000 lawsuits remain unresolved, and this count is progressively increasing.
Notably, within the $11 billion settlement designated for prior cases, a fund of $2 billion has been allocated to address future legal actions.
Six plaintiffs filed Roundup lawsuits against Monsanto in St. Louis. Monsanto attempted to change the venue for five of the cases to St. Louis County as one of the injuries originated in Missouri. The circuit court initially denied their request. However, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that, based on the state’s venue statute, the venue for these cases should indeed be moved to St. Louis County because the corporation’s registered agent was located there at the time of filing.
One of the cases will remain in St. Louis City due to a procedural error by Monsanto’s lawyers.
The New York State Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Bayer, accusing the company of deceiving consumers in New York by marketing Roundup as an environmentally safe weed killer despite knowing or should have known about its potential cancer risks.
In an unexpected development, Bayer has recently announced a settlement agreement for $6.9 million to resolve the case. The lawsuit was centered around allegations of violating New York laws pertaining to false and misleading advertising.
Monsanto is currently seeking to bar Dr. Ron Schiff, a key expert witness for the plaintiffs, from providing his opinion testimony.
Monsanto asserts that Dr. Schiff’s views regarding the connection between Roundup and cancer are founded on flawed methodology, making them unreliable and inadmissible.
Additonally, with the aim of changing the course of the litigation, the upcoming trials in Philadelphia regarding the Round up lawsuit are expected to provide a fresh start.
Scheduled to begin in Fall 2023, the trials will potentially yield outcomes similar to those seen in the MDL.
Philadelphia stands out as a jurisdiction recognized for its impartiality towards victims.
At present, the Philadelphia mini-MDL includes around 200 lawsuits related to Roundup and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The Arkansas Supreme Court recently denied Monsanto’s petition to reverse a ruling by a judge in Drew County, which requires Werner Baumann, the former CEO of Bayer, to appear in an Arkansas state court for a Roundup lawsuit.
Bayer CropScience LP and Monsanto Co. have reached a settlement of nearly $7 million with the state of New York regarding false and misleading advertising allegations related to Roundup.
Bayer was accused of making unsupported claims that Roundup products posed no harm to anything beyond weeds and did not endanger the health of animal wildlife.
Additionally, they claimed Roundup products were safer than dish soap, which was contradictory to prior statements.
In a significant update regarding Monsanto’s Roundup, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to intervene in a class settlement worth $39 million.
The settlement, which includes a substantial $14.4 million cy pres award, was challenged by an objector who claimed that the allocation of funds to charity deviated from compensating class members.
However, both the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit had previously given their approval to the settlement.
The settlement emerged from allegations made by plaintiffs accusing Monsanto of deceptive practices concerning the health risks associated with the weed killer.
There are still thousands of Roundup cancer claims pending across the United States.
Roundup lawyers are still accepting claims for individuals who would like to go to trial or negotiate a settlement for these cases.
Monsanto requested the full Eleventh Circuit to affirm the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that the company failed to warn about the health risks associated with Roundup.
The plaintiff, John Carson Sr., claimed that he developed soft-tissue cancer from using the weedkiller.
However, the district court initially dismissed the case.
Bayer then paid Carson, a doctor from Georgia, to appeal the case, leading to the Circuit Court flipping the verdict.
The full Eleventh Circuit has agreed to hear the case.
Monsanto argued that Carson’s claims are preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, which disallows state-law labeling or packaging requirements that are different from federal law.
Roundup Weed Killers, the popular herbicide manufactured by Monsanto, is the subject of Roundup lawsuits alleging non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, according to a 2015 report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization.
Roundup Weed Killers is a herbicide that kills broadleaf plants and grasses when applied to the leaves of the plants.
Roundup is the world’s most widely used herbicide and the second-most popular weed killer for residential yards and gardens, according to National Geographic.
Introduced by Monsanto in 1974, Roundup’s popularity increased dramatically in the 1990s when Monsanto introduced “Roundup Ready” crops that were genetically engineered to resist the herbicide so that farmers could apply it liberally on entire fields.
The following countries have banned Roundup:
WARNING!
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) links exposure to glyphosate to non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Swedish study concludes exposure to glyphosate doubled risk of developing non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma within less than 10 years.
Dr. John Franz, creator of glyphosate, introduced to National Inventor’s Hall of Fame.
American study of more than 3,400 farmworkers in Midwest found higher rates of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma associated with glyphosate.
Canadian Study found a dose response relationship between glyphosate exposure and non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Monsanto sales surge with new marketing strategy – genetically engineered seeds designed to tolerate Roundup, while weeds around them die.
Monsanto introduces Roundup with glyphosate.
DDT, a commonly used insecticide, is banned in the U.S.
Two nonprofit groups, Beyond Pesticides and the Organic Consumers Association, recently filed a lawsuit against Monsanto alleging that its glyphosate-based product, Roundup, is mislabeled as targeting an enzyme found in plants but not in people or pets.
The lawsuits charge that Monsanto knows its representations are false, yet chose to profit off Roundup rather than warn consumers of the health risks associated with the chemical.
More than 8,000 cancer lawsuits are now pending against Monsanto, filed by individuals who allege that they developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma because of glyphosate exposure.
The weed killer is also being added to California’s Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer.
Proposition 65 is a right-to-know California law that voters approved in 1986.
It requires the state to maintain a list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm but does not ban or restrict the use of listed chemicals.
However, it does require businesses to provide warnings prior to causing significant exposure to a listed chemical, and also prohibits discharges of the chemical into drinking water sources.
In October 2016, 21 Roundup lawsuits pending in fourteen districts were consolidated into multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California.
The lawsuits, filed primarily by agricultural and landscape workers who used glyphosate for an extended period of time, make similar allegations.
This includes an allegation that Monsanto knew or should have known about the link between Roundup and non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, yet failed to provide proper warnings and instructions about safety measures that should be taken to reduce exposure to glyphosate contained in the popular weed killer.
Many states have a two-year statute of limitations allowing individuals to file a lawsuit two years from the date on which they learned of a possible health connection with a particular product, and given the March 2015 release of the IARC report and the fact that the deadline is looming, cases continue to stream in.
Between state and federal courts, hundreds of Roundup lawsuits have been filed in the U.S.
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