Jury Verdict Against Monsanto’s Roundup
In August 2018, San Francisco’s Superior Court jurors found that Roundup, the most popular weed killer in the world, gave a former school groundskeeper terminal cancer, the jury awarded him 289 million dollars in damages. A Roundup cancer lawyer Phoenix, AZ can advise an injured party regarding potential claims and remedies.
Dewayne Johnson’s victory could set a precedent for thousands of other cases claiming Monsanto’s herbicide causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Johnson’s case was the first to go to trial because his doctor’s said that he was near death, and in California dying plaintiffs can be granted expedited trials.
The jury awarded Johnson 250 million dollars in punitive damages and 39 million dollars in compensatory damages. The jury found that Monsanto had purposely ignored warnings and evidence that Roundup causes cancer, including Johnson’s lymphoma. The jury found that Monsanto failed to adequately warn of its known potential dangers, or instruct on the safe use of Roundup.
Punitive damages are designed to punish companies that juries determine have purposely misbehaved and to deter others from operating in a similar fashion.
After the verdict, Monsanto issued a statement saying it stands by the studies that suggest Roundup does not cause cancer.
Johnson, age 46, applied Roundup weed killer 20-30 times per year while working as a groundskeeper for a school district near San Francisco. He mixed and sprayed hundreds of gallons of the weed killer. He testified that during his work, he had two accidents in which he was soaked with the product. Two years later he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. By the time of the trial, he had lesions on most of his body and he was too impaired to speak on bad days.
In October 2018, a judge reduced the jury’s award to 78 million dollars, 39 million dollars each for compensation and punitive damages. In November 2018, Johnson agreed to accept the reduced award of 78 million dollars. A Roundup cancer lawyer Phoenix, AZ can inform a victim regarding the status of pending Roundup litigation cases.
On March 19, 2019 another San Francisco federal jury determined that Roundup’s weed killer ingredient glyphosate was a substantial factor in causing Hodgkin’s lymphoma to a 70-year-old man.
The jury ordered Monsanto to pay more than $80 million in damages whose cancer it believed was partly caused by Roundup. The jury found that Monsanto should be liable because it failed to include a label on the product, warning of the weed killer’s risk of causing cancer.
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer declared glyphosate a probable carcinogen.
Bayer bought Monsanto, the company states that it believes that glyphosate-based herbicides do not cause cancer. Monsanto has stated that they planned to appeal every adverse verdict. At the end of 2018, the company was facing 9,300 similar lawsuits across the country. More than 750 Roundup cases have been consolidated in San Francisco’s federal court.
A Roundup cancer lawyer Phoenix, AZ should provide a free consultation, and advise an injured party regarding the status of pending Roundup litigation and claims. Contact the Law Office of Paul Englander, PLC today.