Roundup maker fights 'liberal standard,' damages

Monsanto asks federal court to shift venue of Roundup cancer suits from California and its 'media bias'

Monsanto want the federal Roundup cancer lawsuits moved out of California, claiming, among other things, that the state's media is biased against the company.

According to a San Francisco Chronicle story by Bob Egelko yesterday, the agrichemical giant says California has "plaintiff-friendly laws and 'highly prejudicial coverage' in news media."

Shades of Donald Trump screeching about bias and fake news.

The Monsanto request — in which the company cites Proposition 65, a 1986 ballot measure authorizing state health officials to declare that chemicals and other products pose a risk of cancer or birth defects — came after three verdicts by San Francisco Bay Area juries awarded huge damages to cancer victims who used the company's herbicides.

The agribusiness has asked that the next federal cases be shifted to Nebraska and North Carolina, where some other plaintiffs live.

Ironically, the next trial is slated Aug. 19 in County Circuit Court in St. Louis, Monsanto's hometown, where, an online story by Carey Gillam in Environmental Health News indicates, "corporate officials can be forced to appear on the witness stand, and legal precedence shows a history of anti-corporate judgments."

Aimee Wagstaff

Aimee Wagstaff, who was co-lead counsel for Edwin Hardeman, a Sonoma County, California, man who was awarded $80 million in damages, will also be co-counsel in the Missouri case filed by Sharlean Gordon, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after 15 years of using Roundup.

Wagstaff, Gillam's story says, "plans to subpoena several Monsanto scientists to appear on the witness stand to answer questions directly in front of a jury. She and the other attorneys trying the California cases were not able to force Monsanto employees to testify live because of the distance. The law provides that witnesses cannot be compelled to travel more than 100 miles or out of state from where they live or work."

Egelko's piece notes that of "more than 3,000 pending lawsuits nationwide by users of Roundup and other Monsanto weed killers, about 1,300 federal suits have been consolidated before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco," who'd presided over the first federal trial in March.

The International Association for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, has classified Roundup's active ingredient, glyphosate, as a probable cause of cancer in humans — although it isn't listed "as hazardous by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or regulatory agencies in other countries," the Chronicle article asserts.

California, not incidentally, "listed glyphosate as a cancer-causing substance in 2017, although a federal judge later stopped the state from requiring Monsanto to post warning labels on the product."

The company's attorneys, the article also reports, claim California law "allows juries to find that a product is a 'substantial factor' of an illness, a more liberal standard than in other states; makes it easer than other states to qualify witnesses as experts; and, unlike some states, has no limits on damages for emotional distress or punitive damages."

The lawyers also contend that "California's pool of prospective jurors is tainted by the extensive and highly prejudicial coverage in local, state and national news media of the prior three California verdicts."

The judgments against Monsanto, after lawyers for cancer victims had argued that the company had "unduly influenced the EPA," Egelko adds, have included "$289 million by a San Francisco jury for a Benicia school groundskeeper, later reduced by a judge to $78.5 million; $80 million by a jury in Chhabia's court for [Hardeman], and more than $2 billion, mostly in punitive damages, by an Oakland jury for a Livermore couple."

Monsanto, which was purchased by Bayer AG last June, a German pharmaceutical company, is appealing all three verdicts, after which the stock prices of Bayer dipped to their lowest level in seven years, erasing more than 40 percent of their market value.

More information on lawsuits stemming from chemicals 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.

Agribusiness 'negligent' about herbicide risks

Monsanto loses second consecutive case that finds Roundup causes cancer, this time for $80 million 

A federal jury in San Francisco slapped an $80 million judgment against Monsanto this week for causing a Sonoma man's cancer through Roundup.

The six-person jury deliberated only one day. 

Its verdict, that Monsanto had been "negligent by not using reasonable care" to warn of the risks of the herbicide, was unanimous. 

Edwin Hardeman

The award against Monsanto, now owned by Bayer AG, which intends to appeal, included $75 million in punitive damages, $5 million in compensation and $200,000 for medical expenses for 70-year-old Edwin Hardeman, a retiree who'd contracted non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a blood cancer, after more than two decades of using Roundup to kill weeds on his 56-acre property.

According to an online story by Amanda Bronstad in law.com's The Record, Hardeman's attorneys, Aimee Wagstaff and Jennifer Moore, issued a statement after the verdict asserting that "it is clear from Monsanto's actions that it does not care whether Roundup causes cancer, focusing instead on manipulating public opinion and undermining anyone who raises genuine and legitimate concerns about Roundup."

The lawyers noted that "it speaks volumes that not one Monsanto employee, past or present, came live to trial to defend Roundup's safety or Monsanto's actions," the article continues.

Bayer, through a statement, claimed that "over four decades of extensive science and the conclusions of regulators worldwide…support the safety of our glyphosate-band herbicides," which the company continues to insist "are not carcinogenic."

The World Health Organization's cancer arm, however, has certified that glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic to humans."

The federal verdict, which may be as bellwether for 800 other lawsuits against Monsanto, follows a case in a San Francisco Superior Court in which jurors awarded $289 million, which was cut to $78 million by the judge.

Another case against the agribusiness was scheduled to start today in Alameda County Superior Court. Plaintiffs are Alva and Alberta Pilliod, both of whom contracted non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after decades of using Roundup.

Information on other verdicts against major corporations 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.

Jury verdict against agribusiness is upheld

Judge slashes punitive award against Monsanto but still blames its Roundup for cancer

A San Francisco Superior Court judge has drastically cut a monetary award against Monsanto but kept a verdict that can mean real trouble for the St. Louis-based agribusiness.

Judge Suzanne Bolanos 

Judge Suzanne Bolanos upheld a jury's verdict that its weed killer, Roundup, "caused a groundskeeper's cancer" through its active chemical ingredient, glyphosate. 

She did so at the same time, according to a recent Associated Press story by Paul Elias, that she slashed the amount of money to be paid to the man from $289 million to $78 million."

While denying Monsanto's request for a new trial, Elias' piece says, she cut the jury's punitive damage award from $250 to $39 million.

His story says that her decision in effect confirms the jury's view that Monsanto "had purposely ignored warnings and evidence that its popular Roundup product causes cancer, including DeWayne Johnson's lymphoma."

In a tentative ruling on Oct. 11, Bolanos had said it appeared to her that the jury had overreached with punitive damages.

She also had indicated, the AP story says, that she might erase the entire $250 million judgment — because she found "no compelling evidence presented at trial that Monsanto employees ignored evidence that the weed killer caused cancer."

But Bolanos clearly reversed herself in yesterday's ruling "and said the jurors appeared to agree with Johnson's expert witness, Dr. Chadi Nahban, who concluded that [Roundup] caused the groundskeeper's cancer."

Some jurors had been "so upset by the prospect of having their verdict thrown out that they wrote to Bolanos," the AP story reported.

"I urge you to respect and honor our verdict and the six weeks of our lives that we dedicated to this trial," the San Francisco Chronicle quoted juror Gary Kitahata as writing.

And Robert Howard, another juror, said he and his fellow jurors had paid "studious attention" the evidence and "any decision to overturn its verdict would shake his confidence in the judicial system," the Associated Press story again quotes the Chronicle.

The final $39 million for punitive damages was the same amount the jury had awarded Johnson for other damages.

Monsanto now faces the prospect of going to trial in hundreds of other cases already filed that allege Roundup has caused cancer — and upwards of 5,000 other instances.

Elias' story notes that "Johnson had sprayed Roundup and a similar product, Ranger Pro, at his job as a pest control manager at a San Francisco Bay Area school district, according to his attorneys. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014 at age 42."

He allegedly had applied the weed killer as many as 30 times a year.

Bolanos gave Johnson until Dec. 7 "to accept the reduced amount or demand a new trial," the AP article reports. The plaintiff's spokesperson, Diane McKinley, said that "although we believe a reduction in punitive damages was unwarranted and we are weighing the options, we are pleased the court did not disturb the verdict."

Punitive damages, the story adds, "are designed to punish companies that juries determine have purposely misbehaved and to deter others from operating similarly."

More information on lawsuits about products allegedly causing 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.