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.

U.S. judge rejects $2 billion Monsanto offer to quash future suits by Roundup cancer victims

A federal jurist in San Francisco has rejected Monsanto's proposed $2 billion Roundup settlement.

According to a story by Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle two days ago,  U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria indicates the plan by the giant agribusiness, intended "to fend off suits by cancer victims" who sprayed the company's herbicide on their crops, offered little to users who might be diagnosed with cancer in the future.

Chhabria labeled the proposal "clearly unreasonable."

"More than 100,000 people nationwide who suffer from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and other cancers," the story notes, "have already sued Monsanto and its parent company, Bayer AG." 

Bayer has offered nearly $10 billion to settle those pending lawsuits, resolving almost 70 percent of them. But yesterday's ruling was about an additional $2 billion for those who have yet to go to court.

Three San Francisco juries, including one in which Chhabria presided, have awarded tens of millions of damages to cancer victims of the world's most widely used weed-killer. Those verdicts were undoubtedly based in part on a 2015 statement by the International Association for Research on Cancer, a World Health Organization arm, that glyphosate is a probable cause of cancer in human beings.

Bill Freese, science director of the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, was quoted in the Chronicle article as saying that the settlement would have left many users "high and dry in order to limit Bayer/Monsanto's liability for their carcinogenic herbicide."

The rejected proposal included the limitations that victims already diagnosed with cancer would accept payments no more than $200,000 each and that they could seek compensation for personal harm but not punitive damages, despite the latter being the largest part of previous jury verdicts.

Those not yet diagnosed would have been able to seek four years of company-funded medical monitoring and receive payments from the $2 billion fund if they subsequently got cancer; Chhabria, however, maintained that the proposed compensation fund might run out of money by the time they were diagnosed.

After the ruling, Bayer said it would reevaluate "the future of glyphosate-based products in the U.S. residential market," according to the Chronicle piece.

Monsanto and Bayer have long contended that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found Roundup safe and said it could be sold without warning labels.

Details on other litigation over disease-producing agents 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.

Bayer adjunct loses plea about ignoring safety

Top court in California rejects Monsanto appeal in case where jury ruled that herbicide caused cancer

The California Supreme Court has turned down both defendant and plaintiff appeals in a case where a jury decided the weed-killer Roundup was the reason the defendant contracted cancer.

A story by Bob Egelko in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle explains that the court denied Monsanto's appeal of a "groundbreaking verdict that found the company's widely used herbicide caused a school groundskeeper's cancer and that the company disregarded public safety in marketing its product."

Simultaneously, however, it rejected a review of the plaintiff's appeal of a lower-court ruling that reduced his damages from $78.5 million to $21.5 million.

The case had been the first in the United States to go to trial among many thousands filed against the giant agribusiness now owned by Bayer, which paid $63 billion for it in 2018. Cancer victims maintain that the problem is glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and a more concentrated version called Ranger Pro.

Dewayne Johnson

The plaintiff in the groundbreaking case, Dewayne Johnson, had developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a blood cancer, after using the Ranger Pro from two to three hours a day over a four-year period as a groundskeeper and pest-control manager for the Benicia School District. At the time of the 2018 trial, lesions covered his body. 

The Vallejo resident testified, Egelko's story says, that "he wore protective clothing but couldn't fully protect his face from wind-blown spray, and twice was drenched with herbicide sprays from a detached hose and a leaking container."

According to the Chronicle article, the jury determined that Monsanto "should have known the product was carcinogenic, and 'acted with malice or oppression' by failing to notify Johnson's employer."

Bayer has indicated it may consider further review of Wednesday's rulings, which most likely would mean seeking a federal court judgment. The company has previously said it would pay nearly $10 billion to upwards of 125,000 claimants, as well as setting aside another billion for potential future plaintiffs. Those settlements, announced in June, haven't yet been finalized and, in fact, have been challenged by some plaintiffs' lawyers. 

Information on other suits against manufacturers 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.

30,000 suits against weed-killer still in play

Bayer, parent of Monsanto, agrees to pay $10 billion to thousands who claim Roundup caused their cancer

Bayer AG has unexpectedly agreed to pay $10 billion in cancer settlements in regard to the world's most widely used weed-killer.

According to a story by Hannah Denham in The Washington Post, the German company, the world's largest seed and agrochemical maker that had merged with agribusiness giant Monsanto in a $63 billion deal, "will allocate between $8.8 billion and $9.6 billion to resolve the current Roundup litigation."

That will cover "75 percent of the 125,000 current filed and unfixed claims that the product leads to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma" — meaning that some 30,000 suits remain unsettled.

Judge Vince Chhabria

In addition, Bayer "will also pay $1.25 billion for a separate class agreement for potential future claims, which will be subject to approval in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by Judge Vince Chhabria," Denham's piece reports.

Although agreed to, the settlements have yet to be signed and sealed.

At the time of the 2018 merger, and since, Monsanto has "maintained that glyphosate — the active weed-killing ingredient in Roundup — had a history of safe use, and Bayer has echoed that since its acquisition."

In 2015, however, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, proclaimed that the herbicide was "probably carcinogenic to humans."

Details of the settlements became public today, only one day after U.S. District Judge William Shubb, ignoring the verdicts of three California juries against Monsanto, had issued a permanent injunction against the state's requiring a warning label on the pesticide.

Plaintiffs in those cases had won nearly $300 million. Monsanto, however, will continue to appeal all of them, and the settlements — which involved negotiations with 25 different law firms — do not apply to any of the three.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs, according to EcoWatch, an environmental website, had “argued that the [Environmental Protection Agency's earlier] insistence that Roundup does not cause cancer is spurious since there was evidence the company had unduly influenced the federal agency and had ‘ghost-written’ purported research studies on the product’s safety.” 

EcoWatch strongly suggested that the settlement, one of the largest ever in U.S. civil litigation, came about because of "the spate of lawsuits and their legal fees [that made Bayer] lose 40 percent of its value."

The plaintiffs also alleged, the website's story said, that “Bayer manipulated studies and deceived the scientific community to make glyphosate seem safer than it actually is, according to Reuters.”

The Post article noted meanwhile that "Bayer said that the settlement was a unanimous decision from the company's board of management, supervisory board and input from the special litigation committee, adding that the settlement doesn't mean an admission of liability or wrongdoing."

The piece indicated further that "chief executive Werner Baumann said in a statement that the action allows the company to 'bring a long period of uncertainty to an end.'" 

More information on court cases alleging that products 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.

Verdicts of three California juries nixed

Federal judge sides with Monsanto, blocks cancer-warning labels from most widely used weed-killer

Ignoring the verdicts of three California juries, a federal judge ruled yesterday that the state can’t require a warning label on Roundup.

U.S. District Judge William Shubb

U.S. District Judge William Shubb, according to an Associated Press story, issued a permanent injunction against the labeling of the world’s most widely used weed-killer — despite plaintiffs in the three cases having won nearly $300 million after the juries agreed that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, Monsanto’s herbicide, causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other blood cancers.

The AP cited a contrary quote by Shubb in the San Francisco Chronicle to the effect that “the great weight of evidence indicates that glyphosate is not known to cause cancer.”

The U.S. District judge noted that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and similar agencies in Europe “haven’t found a connection between the chemical and cancer.”

The judge contended, according to the AP, that “the state couldn’t meet a legal standard” for requiring the labeling — in effect overturning California’s warning requisite on cancer-causing products under its Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act that was approved in 1986 by voters. 

California had wanted the labels based on a 2016 finding by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, that glyphosate "was probably a cause of cancer in humans.”

Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer AG, a German chemical and pharmaceutical giant, sued to overturn that position and, in 2018, Shubb temporarily blocked the labeling. In his latest ruling, the judge suggested that the state can force a company to change its label only if the statement is purely factual and non-controversial — itself apparently a controversial posture.

The monster agribusiness, meanwhile, has appealed the verdicts in all three cases.

It had been facing some 125,000 lawsuits in spite of contending Roundup is safe. But of those cases — reports a story on the EcoWatch website that features “environmental news for a healthier planet and life” — Bayer “made a verbal agreement to settle 50,000 to 85,000 cases in May, awarding plaintiffs anywhere from a few thousand dollars to a few million, according to Fortune” magazine.

The reason for those settlements, EcoWatch speculated, is “the spate of lawsuits and their legal fees [that] made the company lose 40 percent of its value.”

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in those instances, that article continues, “argued that the EPA’s insistence that Roundup does not cause cancer is spurious since there was evidence the company had unduly influenced the federal agency and had ‘ghost-written’ purported research studies on the product’s safety.” 

The story also noted that the verdicts in the three cases with huge settlements, all of which are being appealed by Monsanto, came after the plaintiffs alleged that “Bayer manipulated studies and deceived the scientific community to make glyphosate seem safer than it actually is, according to Reuters.”

More information about lawsuits pertaining to 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.

Bayer/Monsanto trying to fix damaged image

Maker of Roundup herbicide planning to spend $5.6 billion on research to find a new weed-killer

Despite, or maybe because of, facing more than 5,000 lawsuits over its Roundup herbicide causing cancer, Bayer AG plans to spend $5.6 billion on researching a new weed-killer.

Bayer, parent company of agribusiness Monsanto, which recently lost three court cases that found the glyphosate-based weed-killer caused cancer, is desperately trying to wipe the tarnish from its image.

All three court cases are being appealed.

According to a recent story by Rachel Siegel in The Washington Post, though Bayer still insists that glyphosate is safe, it announced it's not only investing that $5.6 billion but it's pledging "to reduce the company's environmental footprint by 30 percent through 2030."

That promise, Siegel's story says, "signaled a change in tone for Bayer. On its website, along with a full-page ad in [the] Post, Bayer said, 'We listened. We learned.'"

The vow reportedly also added the following phrases: "As a new leader in agriculture, Bayer has a heightened responsibility and the unique potential to advance farming for the benefit of society and the planet. We are committed to living up to this responsibility."

Ken Cook

Siegel's piece, however, quoted Ken Cook, president and co-founder of the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, as saying that "if Bayer is serious about reforming its products, it has to commit to a fundamentally new paradigm for pesticides, which must start with a simple principal: This class of chemicals should not end up in people."

EWG last week published a report, the Post story asserts, that Roundup has "been detected in 21 oat-based cereals and snack products tested by the organization."

Siegel apparently believes Monsanto/Bayer "underestimated the reputational damage" that stemmed from the losing lawsuits "and how they damaged the company's public perception."

The Post also quotes Anthony Johndrow, an expert on how corporations manage crises, to the effect that Bayer is making its decisions more transparent and "is sincerely making a change."

Bayer, he indicates, knew what they were getting when they bought Monsanto last June: "This is their going forward, whether they like it or not."

When a jury recently awarded $2 billion to a Livermore couple who blamed Roundup for their non-Hodgkins lymphoma diagnoses, the verdict added to Bayer's steep stock descent to its lowest level in seven years, erasing more than 40 percent of its market value.

To read about more court cases involving manufacturers sued because their products caused disease, check out "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.