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Court Upholds $86M Reward to California Couple in Roundup Case

Monsanto Co. challenged a reward of $86.2 million in damages to a couple who developed cancer after three decades of using Roundup weed killer. Last week, California’s highest court rejected this objection. It upheld the original ruling of the Roundup case in favor of Alva and Alberta Pilliod.

Responses to Recent Roundup Case Ruling

In August, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco declared in a 2-1 ruling that Monsanto was to blame for knowingly marketing and selling a product with a potentially dangerous active ingredient.

Parent company Bayer disagreed with this decision. In a statement, the company said, “We continue to stand strongly behind the safety of Roundup, a position supported by assessments of expert regulators worldwide as well as the overwhelming weight of four decades of extensive science.”

Brent Wisner, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, shared with the San Francisco Chronicle that the ruling “was based on solid science and unanimous law.” He encouraged the company to stop with its “frivolous appeals.”

The Future of Roundup Settlements

Over the summer, Bayer revealed that it would stop selling the current version of Roundup for home and garden use in U.S. stores in 2023. The company plans to replace the main ingredient, glyphosate, with a new ingredient. This ingredient change is still subject to federal and state approval. They will continue to sell Roundup with glyphosate for farm use. 

Thus far, Bayer has agreed to pay $10 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits at both the state and federal level. They have also tried to resolve future lawsuits with a settlement of up to $2 billion. So far, these efforts have been unsuccessful. 

For more information about the lawsuits related to Roundup, contact us today.

Additional Reading:

Bayer Roundup Trial Goes Virtual Due to COVID-19 Concerns

Bayer Loses Third Consecutive Appeal of Roundup Cancer Verdict

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Bayer Roundup Trial Goes Virtual Due to COVID-19 Concerns

A California trial between an elderly cancer victim and Monsanto owner Bayer AG switched to virtual proceedings in late August due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19. 

Technical Difficulties for the Virtual Trial

On the first day, thanks to various technical problems, lawyers for plaintiff Donnetta Stephens only presented abbreviated testimony from Charles Benbrook. Benbrook is a former research professor who was once the executive director of the National Academy of Sciences agriculture board. As a key witness, he testified about topics including the history of scientific submissions to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by Monsanto as well as failed regulatory shortcomings.

Unfortunately, the proceedings for Stephens indicated that both sides may be significantly challenged in trying to share evidence and testimony in a virtual format. Some issues faced during this first session include: a court reporter who couldn’t fully hear the exchanges between lawyer and witness; jurors who had trouble using their computer cameras (a requirement); and poor audio transmission for Judge Gilbert Ochoa. Despite the technical difficulties, the judge noted that they made history by holding the court’s “first Zoom trial.”

The History of Bayer Roundup Trials

The case is being tried in the Superior Court of San Bernardino County in California. It is the fourth Roundup cancer trial to take place in the United States — the first since 2019. For the three previous trials, juries ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. They agreed that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weed killers, including Roundup, cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that Monsanto spent years hiding the risks and failing to warn consumers. 

Tens of thousands of plaintiffs filed lawsuits against Monsanto after the World Health Organization’s cancer experts determined that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen with a link to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. 

For more information about lawsuits related to Roundup, contact us today.

 

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Bayer Loses Third Consecutive Appeal of Roundup Cancer Verdict

Bayer AG’s Roundup faces another setback as it loses a third consecutive appeal of a jury finding that its weed killer causes cancer. The company has averaged nearly $50 million in damages for each consumer.

An appeals court in San Francisco refused to overturn the 2019 verdict that awarded more than $2 billion to a couple who claimed they fell ill after more than three decades of using the herbicide. The verdict was the eighth-largest product-defect award in U.S. history. The appeals court agreed with the trial judge’s decision to reduce the amount to $86.7 million.

Bayer’s Response to Roundup Cancer Verdicts

Bayer recently set aside an additional $4.5 billion to address thousands of Roundup lawsuits, which means its total reserves for the cases is over $16 billion. Additionally, the company’s Monsanto unit will remove the current version of Roundup from the market in 2023. 

In 2018, the company inherited the legal issues related to Roundup when it purchased Monsanto for $63 billion. Monsanto began manufacturing Roundup in the 1970s.

“We respectfully disagree with the court’s ruling as the verdict is not supported by the evidence at trial or the law,” Bayer said via an email statement. “Monsanto will consider its legal options in this case.”

Bayer plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to look at another case the company lost in 2019, hoping that it will determine that the company should be absolved of any wrongdoing because federal regulators determined that glyphosate isn’t a carcinogen. 

What’s Next for Bayer

A fourth trial began last week in San Bernardino, California’s state court. 70-year-old Donnetta Stephens allegedly developed non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma after using Roundup for more than 30 years. Before the trial began, the manufacturing company’s lawyers persuaded the judge to throw out claims that the company hid Roundup’s health risks, which may make it easier for Bayer to win the case. 

For more information about lawsuits related to Roundup, contact us today.

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Bayer Issues New Proposed Settlement in Cases Linking Roundup to Lymphoma Cancer

Multiple jury verdicts in the Bay Area confirmed the link between the widely-used herbicide Roundup (a Monsanto product) and lymphoma cancer, and now, parent company Bayer is hoping to resolve future lawsuits with a proposed $2 billion settlement — its second attempt at reaching an agreement. Product users who were later diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma would receive up to $200,000 in compensation — or more in “exceptional circumstances.” The settlement would remain ongoing for four years, but a judge could approve additional time and/or increase the $2 billion budget if both sides requested the change. 

The settlement is still waiting for approval from a federal judge in San Francisco, who criticized Bayer’s first attempt at settling. Last summer, Bayer and a group of plaintiffs’ lawyers were sent back to the drawing board after being denied their proposed $1.25 billion agreement. 

Not only is the new version financially larger, but it is also less restrictive, allowing non-participants more freedom to pursue their cases in court with only some limitations on damages. Additionally, the settlement would add information to Roundup’s label, saying it may cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, an often deadly cancer. While the label would not directly state Roundup as a cause of the disease, it would include a link to information related to both sides of the legal battle. It would also provide Monsanto product users with free medical evaluations and legal advice as needed. 

In another new section of the settlement, a group of scientists will be chosen by Bayer and the plaintiffs’ lawyers to conduct an independent study on Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, and its links to cancer. Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the product safe, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, determined in 2015 that glyphosate was a probable cause of human cancer. 

Bayer previously settled up to 125,000 suits with a nearly $10 billion agreement, all directed at U.S. residents who said they had been diagnosed with cancer or other illnesses after using Roundup or Ranger Pro, another product that contained glyphosate. 

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