Monsanto appeals a $25.2 million damage verdict against Roundup herbicide to Supreme Court

Monsanto has challenged a $25.2 million award to a cancer patient.

Edwin Hardeman

According to a recent story by Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle, the agribusiness giant told the Supreme Court that the damage verdict in favor of the patient, Edwin Hardeman, who sprayed Roundup on his North Bay properties "should never have gone to the jury." 

The basis of the claim by Bayer, Monsanto's parent company, is that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had concluded that the herbicide, the world's most widely used, was safe.

However, an arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Agency for Research on Cancer, had concluded in 2015, that the main ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, "was a probable cause of human cancer, a finding endorsed by California health officials," the Chronicle piece says.

The court is expected to consider the appeal at its weekly conference Dec. 10.

Monsanto filed the appeal despite it agreeing to replace glyphosate "with another active ingredient for U.S. home and garden sales, starting in 2023, while continuing to market the current version for agricultural use," Egelko's story reports.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a May ruling that upheld Hardeman's damage award, "said the EPA's approval did not carry the force of law, and it did not preclude a judge or jury from deciding whether Monsanto had violated a California law requiring warnings against risks that are 'known or knowable.'" 

Hardeman was diagnosed with lymphoma, a sometimes fatal disease, in 2015 after having used Roundup for 26 years on properties in Galla and Santa Rosa.

A federal court jury in July 2019 found the weed-killer was a "substantial cause" of his cancer. It awarded him, according to Egelko's story, "damages for economic losses, pain and suffering and emotional distress, along with punitive damages against the company for selling a product it knew, or should have known, to be dangerous." 

The article also notes that "state courts, meanwhile, have upheld damages of $21.5 million to Dewayne 'Lee' Johnson, diagnosed with terminal cancer after spraying the herbicide as a groundskeeper for the Benicia Unified School District, and $82.2 million to Alva and Alberta Pilliod of Livermore, who sprayed Roundup on their crops for 30 years."

More information about consumer products that may cause disease can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Calif. attorney general backs weed-killer victims

Agri-business Monsanto claims that federal ruling supersedes California law as it appeals big cancer award

Who's gonna win in court — cancer victims or the manufacturer of weed-killers that have been deemed apt to cause malignancies?

Monsanto, which produces Ranger Pro as well as Roundup, has, in effect, decided to test that question.

Dwayne "Lee" Johnson

According to a story by Bob Egelko in an edition of the San Francisco Chronicle last week, the giant agri-business is — by challenging a $78.5 million damage award to Dwayne "Lee" Johnson, a Vallejo groundskeeper who was stricken with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014 after spraying Benicia school grounds with Ranger Pro for four years — betting a federal ruling supersedes California law.

But Egelko's story indicates that Xavier Becerra, the state's attorney general, told the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco on Wednesday that the 2018 verdict "was valid based on state laws requiring warning labels for cancer-causing chemicals."

Glyphosate, the weed-killers' active ingredient, is the chemical that's been said to be carcinogenic.

Monsanto is depending on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruling — repeated in August — that the chemical is safe. 

Becerra's office, meanwhile, "argued that the EPA's statements about glyphosate, and its approval of a product label without cancer warnings, 'do not carry the force of law.'"

Lawyers from that office also contended that the EPA's stance "does not prohibit a state from finding that the agency-approved label 'is inadequate to protect public health and therefore constitutes misbranding.'"

In a statement, the article continues, Becerra maintained that "California process its residents from dangerous pesticides. We shouldn't be forced to put our heads in the sand simply because the EPA won't do its job."

Johnson's lawyers have said that Monsanto, now a subsidiary of the German pharmaceutical company Bayer AG, "unduly influenced EPA decisions and had 'ghost-written' reports for the government agency."

They furthermore cited a 2015 assessment by an arm of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, that glyphosate was a probable cause of cancer in humans.

The jury that awarded Johnson $78.5 million found unanimously that Monsanto was responsible for his cancer and should have known of the product's perils, Egelko's story notes.

Suzanne Bolano, the San Francisco Superior Court judge in Johnson's case, allowed lawyers to argue that Mosanto knew its product was dangerous and should have informed the public. 

Similar stances were taken by judges in two similar cases where huge verdicts were rendered against the company.

More information on corporations that are blamed for manufacturing products that cause cancer can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at caregivers. 

'Seismic shift' about fragility hits food industry

Female chefs in San Francisco fight restaurant industry taboo, speak out about having breast cancer

Several female chefs have had to fight the macho atmosphere of Michelin-rated San Francisco Bay Area restaurants when they contracted breast cancer.

According to a story by Mary Ladd in the San Francisco Chronicle last week, those chefs had to break a long-standing taboo in the $800 billion industry against talking openly about the disease. 

"Stress, long hours and pressure have historically been constant" in the restaurant world, an environment in which "even taking time off for illness has been a no-no," the story notes.

Pim Techamuanvivit

That, Ladd explains, fuses with "the old macho chef mentality that you shouldn't talk about mental and physical health."

But the story details what may be a "seismic shift" in attitude happening.

It cites as an example Pim Techamuanvivit, a Michelin star-recipient who attended an award story in a wheelchair "because she was recovering from her third breast cancer surgery" — an event she wouldn't miss "even if she was…in pain."

Techamuanvivit found support from Kin Khao employees who changed shifts to be there when she couldn't. She reported, too, that "managers who had already left to help open other restaurants would come back to take over a few nights a week."

The Chronicle piece also quotes pastry chef/cancer patient Carolyn Nugent, who'd worked  in five three-star kitchens, as saying that she doesn't think there specifically "is a stigma of having cancer in the culinary world [but] there is a stigma of having any sort of weakness in the culinary world."

And she elaborates: "You learn to push through the pain. In the kitchen, anything that is not related to the job is a distraction — and when you lose your focus on the job, unpleasant things happen."

Dominique Crenn, the story indicates, posted photos on Instagram with her hair gone as a result of chemotherapy — and several of her co-workers at her three-star Michelan restaurant Atelier Crenn also "posted photos of their own shaved heads as a sign of support."

Much more information about attitudes regarding the disease can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Benzene found to cause lymphoma, leukemia

Jury awards $21.4 million in two cancer deaths against oil company that merged with Chevron 

A San Francisco Bay Area jury has awarded $21.4 million in the cancer deaths of two brothers who'd handled a deadly chemical.

The Contra Costa County Superior Court found Union Oil responsible for the deaths of Gary and Randy Eaves, who'd worked in a Texarkana, Arkansas, tire-manufacturing plant. 

Union Oil made the rubber solvent containing benzene, which the brothers were exposed to during their longtime employment.

Gary was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2013 at age 59, and Randy was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in 2016, also at age 59.

The trial lasted more than four weeks; jury deliberation's took three days.

Attorney Mary Alexander

According to a statement by a San Francisco lawyer for the families of the brothers, Mary Alexander, "This oil company has been held accountable for their negligence in putting profits before people. This tremendous verdict will help ensure protection consumers as it sends a message that any company that fails to warn about toxic chemicals in the products they sell, such as benzene which causes cancer, will be held responsible."

The plaintiffs had alleged that the company knew the solvents contained benzene and "knew, or should have known, that exposure to it was extremely hazardous and cancer-causing," Alexander wrote.

The trial, according to a recent story by Lauren Hernandez in the San Francisco Chronicle, "was held in Contra Costa County because Chevron — which merged with Unocal, formerly known as Union Oil — headquartered in San Ramon," which is located in that county.

According to the lawyer, Hernandez's article notes, "the chemical sprayed onto [the brothers'] unprotected skin while handling the solvent…and Union Oil never told the plant or its workers to wear respirators or protective clothing, and never advised workers to handle the chemical inside of a ventilation booth."

In addition, Alexander was quoted as saying, "They did not ship the solvent with material safety data sheets or any other data that reflected the solvent contained benzene that cause cancer."

Chevron, the story says, "provide a one-sentence statement to The Chronicle in response to the decision, stating, 'We do not believe the Unocal had any role in the claimed injuries and we are evaluating the jury's decision and the court's rulings in this matter."

The newspaper's story said that Eaves families, who live in Arkansas, stayed in the Bay Area throughout the trial.

It also reported that Alexander "said Union Oil representatives are responsible for paying the $21.4 million bill as the primary defendant in the case, despite it technically not existing anymore."

Chevron paid Union Oil's trial costs, she said.

Details of other corporations being responsible for disease-related deaths can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.