A San Diego jury has ordered Bayer unit Monsanto to pay $332 million (£274 million) in damages to a non-Hodgkins lymphoma affected one that claimed his most cancers was introduced on by its glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup. That 31 October jury verdict acquired right here just a few days after a jury in Philadelphia dominated that the company must pay $175 million in damages to a distinct man with the equivalent form of most cancers, and a selection from a St. Louis jury solely every week earlier to award $1.25 million in damages to a third explicit particular person with the equivalent form of most cancers, holding the company answerable for his or her diseases as successfully.
The trio of developments comes a lot of years after three huge plaintiff verdicts in California, adopted by a Monsanto ‘worthwhile streak’ of 9 defence verdicts, explains Wylie Blair, a lawyer who represented the plaintiff in St. Louis.
Brent Wisner, managing companion on the laws company Wisner Baum, who acquired a $2 billion Roundup most cancers verdict in direction of Monsanto in 2019, calls the most recent $175 million verdict ‘an unimaginable end result’. He says it’s clear that Bayer should put collectively a worldwide settlement that resolves ongoing comparable circumstances. ‘Within the occasion that they preserve combating … they run the hazard of larger future verdicts,’ he tells Chemistry World.
Whereas the three huge awards in direction of Bayer–Monsanto just some years once more have been lastly significantly diminished by trial judges and appeals courts, the damages have been nonetheless substantial, Wisner notes. ‘As soon as you start seeing massive verdicts as soon as extra, like the two new ones, it emboldens totally different plaintiffs’ attorneys,’ he supplies.
Within the meantime, Bayer issued an announcement saying that it ‘respectfully’ disagrees with the most recent $175 million verdict, noting that it was a divided dedication. The company expressed confidence that it may truly get that verdict overturned and the damages diminished by means of an attraction.
The article was updated on 2 November 2023 to make clear that the awards in newest alternatives have been made by juries not judges.