{"id":7438,"date":"2019-03-28T09:37:50","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T07:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/?p=7438"},"modified":"2019-03-30T13:45:35","modified_gmt":"2019-03-30T11:45:35","slug":"monsanto-hit-with-80m-verdict-in-first-federal-roundup-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/monsanto-hit-with-80m-verdict-in-first-federal-roundup-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Monsanto Hit With $80M Verdict in First Federal Roundup Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Amanda Bronstad – Ther Recorder, 27 March 2019 | Source<\/a><\/p>\n

After one day of deliberations, jurors in San Francisco found that Monsanto, now owned by Bayer AG, was liable for plaintiff Edwin Hardeman\u2019s non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The award includes $75 million in punitive damages.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A federal jury hit Monsanto with a verdict of more than $80 million Wednesday after finding the company liable for a man\u2019s cancer caused by its Roundup herbicide.<\/p>\n

After one day of deliberations, six jurors in San Francisco unanimously found that Monsanto, now owned by Bayer AG, was liable for plaintiff Edwin Hardeman\u2019s non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The award includes $75 million in punitive damages for Hardeman, who alleged he was diagnosed with the blood cancer after two decades of using Roundup to kill weeds on his 56-acre property in Sonoma County.<\/p>\n

Hardeman\u2019s lead trial attorneys, Aimee Wagstaff, of Andrus Wagstaff in Lakewood, Colorado, and Jennifer A. Moore, of the Moore Law Group in Louisville, Kentucky, said their client was pleased with the verdict.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs demonstrated throughout trial, since Roundup\u2019s inception over 40 years ago, Monsanto refuses to act responsibly,\u201d they wrote in a statement following the verdict. \u201cIt is clear from Monsanto\u2019s 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. It speaks volumes that not one Monsanto employee, past or present, came live to trial to defend Roundup\u2019s safety or Monsanto\u2019s actions. Today, the jury resoundingly held Monsanto accountable for its 40 years of corporate malfeasance and sent a message to Monsanto that it needs to change the way it does business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bayer said it planned to appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are disappointed with the jury\u2019s decision, but this verdict does not change the weight of over four decades of extensive science and the conclusions of regulators worldwide that support the safety of our glyphosate-based herbicides and that they are not carcinogenic,\u201d the company said in a statement. \u201cThe verdict in this trial has no impact on future cases and trials, as each one has its own factual and legal circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

The verdict is the second time that jurors have gone against Monsanto, which suffered a $289 million award last year<\/a> in a case in San Francisco Superior Court. The judge in that case, however, slashed the award by more than $200 million. Another Roundup trial against Monsanto is scheduled to begin Thursday in Alameda County Superior Court.<\/p>\n

The verdict caps the first bellwether trial from about 800 lawsuits coordinated in multidistrict litigation before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California. In a move favoring Monsanto, he\u00a0bifurcated the first bellwether trial<\/a>, forcing plaintiffs to prove that scientific evidence proved their allegations that Roundup causes cancer before moving to the question of Monsanto\u2019s liability. Wednesday\u2019s award ends the second of two phases<\/a> of a trial that began Feb. 25.<\/p>\n

In the first phase, jurors found<\/a> that Roundup was a \u201csubstantial factor\u201d in Hardeman\u2019s cancer. In the second phase, the jury had to determine whether Roundup had a design defect, if Monsanto acted reasonably in selling and marketing Monsanto in light of the scientific evidence, and whether the product should have included a warning label during the time that Hardeman was using it.<\/p>\n

In its statement, Bayer noted that the jury deliberated for four days in the first phase, which dealt with causation\u2014\u201can indication that it was very likely divided over the scientific evidence.\u201c The company also noted skepticism Chhabria expressed pretrial<\/a> about expert evidence on the science.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe legal rulings under which the court admitted expert scientific testimony from the plaintiff that it called \u2018shaky\u2019 is one of several significant issues that the company may raise on appeal,\u201c the company wrote in its statement. \u201cMonsanto moved to exclude this same evidence before trial.\u201c<\/p>\n

The verdict is a victory for Wagstaff, who got off to a rough start after Chhabria sanctioned her<\/a> for what he called \u201cobvious violations\u201d of his pretrial orders during her opening statement in the first phase.<\/p>\n

A team from Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz led by Brian Stekloff represented Monsanto.<\/p>\n

Both sides had stipulated to about $200,000 in economic damages for Hardeman\u2019s medical expenses, but the jury also awarded $5.6 million in past and future non-economic damages.<\/p>\n

Jurors also found clear and convincing evidence that Monsanto was liable, adding punitive damages to the verdict. In closing arguments Tuesday, Moore urged jurors to send a \u201cloud message\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to Monsanto.<\/p>\n

\n

Photo: (L to R) Trial team Jennifer Moore of Moore Law Group and Aimee Wagstaffe of Andrus Wagstaff with plaintiff Edwin Hardeman after their $80 million verdict against Monsanto. (Photo: Jason Doiy\/ALM)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Amanda Bronstad – Ther Recorder, 27 March 2019 | Source After one day of deliberations, jurors in San Francisco found that Monsanto, now owned by Bayer AG, was liable for plaintiff Edwin Hardeman\u2019s non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The award includes $75 million in punitive damages. A federal jury hit Monsanto with a verdict of more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162,50],"tags":[12,200],"class_list":["post-7438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-news","tag-glyphosate","tag-usa","thematic_area-corporate-free-future","thematic_area-food-for-health","thematic_area-poison-free-future"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Monsanto-2531-Article-201903272333.jpg","wpml_translations":[{"language_code":"en","post_id":7438,"original":true},{"language_code":"it","post_id":7690,"original":false}],"custom_fields":{"_edit_lock":["1554457657:2"],"_edit_last":["2"],"_wpml_media_featured":["1"],"_wpml_media_duplicate":["1"],"_alp_processed":["1553946336"],"_thumbnail_id":["7439"],"_wp_old_date":["2019-03-30"],"wpl_sidebar_option":["on"],"wpl_featured_image_post":["on"],"wpl_share_buttons":["on"],"_wpml_media_has_media":["1"],"_wpml_post_translation_editor_native":["yes"]},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9KkNM-1VY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7445,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7438\/revisions\/7445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}