Bayer Reaches $10 Billion Settlement in Roundup Cancer Suits

In March 2019, a federal jury awarded Sonoma County resident Ed Hardeman $80 million in punitive damages, finding Roundup likely caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. U.S District Judge Vincent Chhabria later found the award excessive and reduced it to $20 million.

Then two months later, a jury in nearby Alameda County Superior Court awarded a California couple $2 billion in punitive damages, later reduced to $86.7 million.

The amounts  were reduced because the U.S. Supreme Court has placed constitutional limits on extremely large punitive damages awards.

The settlement does not apply to these three verdicts, which have all been appealed. The Ninth Circuit recently heard oral arguments in the Johnson case.

In its statement Wednesday, Bayer said it weighed the growing number of cases alongside the potential for 20 more trials per year with possibly more unfavorable jury verdicts. The company determined the cost of more litigation would substantially surpass the settlement amount.

Attorney Aimee Wagstaff, who represented Hardeman alongside Moore in 2019, said by phone Wednesday that the settlement resolves claims from 7,000 clients. She also said it was important to bear in mind the uncertainty wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

"I believe my clients who are involved in this resolution will have a very fair value put to their cases,” said Wagstaff, a partner with Andrus Wagstaff in Colorado. “You need to view this in light of the current situation and access to the court. A couple months ago, courts came to a screeching halt and we don’t know when trials will start again. It’s a very fair settlement for the people participating.”

There are still about 25,000 of claims from people who have not agreed to participate. “The settlement amounts discussed were not adequate,” attorney Paul Stoller with Dalimonte Rueb Stoller LLP in Phoenix told Courthouse News on Wednesday. “They have a significant amount of litigation ahead of them. They’re still selling this product and it’s continuing to cause harm and that’s a problem."

Fletch Trammell with Trammell P.C. in Houston said the amounts being offered to his clients were likewise unworkable. “The average medical liens are about $30,000 for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, so these cases are going to require a substantial settlement fund to fairly and effectively resolve,” he said. “We are committed to litigating these cases we are delighted to be doing it and we are happy to try cases for as long as it takes.” 

Trammell represents 5,000 clients not involved in the settlement. Most of his clients’ complaints were filed in St. Louis, where Monsanto is headquartered.

He also has two pediatric cases filed in San Francisco state court last week. Daniel Jimenez and Nahid Murtaza filed a claim on behalf of their child, Noor Jimenez. Destiny Clark also filed a claim on behalf of her son Ezra. 

Trammell said he plans to file a motion for preference in those cases, which is a plaintiff right under California law. “In California it is mandatory that injured plaintiffs under 14 get to go to trial under four months,” he said. “We’re going to figure out how to have a jury trial in this environment.”

He believes there are more children who developed cancer after being exposed to Roundup. “We are actively investigating California children exposed to Roundup either in play at parks or play at school or play in their yard who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma,” he said.

The agreement includes no admission of liability and no changes to the Roundup label.

Wednesday’s settlement announcement also resolves litigation related to the herbicide dicamba, which was developed by Monsanto in response to the trend of weeds becoming resistant to glyphosate.

Scientists at Monsanto genetically engineered soybean and cotton seeds that were resistant to dicamba so when farmers planted those seeds, they could be sure that when they sprayed dicamba, it would only kill plants without the genetically engineered resistance. But neighboring farmers claimed their crops were damaged by dicamba drifting onto their adjacent fields and orchards.

On June 3, the Ninth Circuit vacated the EPA’s approval of dicamba, saying the agency failed to properly assess the risks of drift damage stemming from its widespread chemical use.

Bayer will pay $400 million to farmers who claimed their crops were damaged from dicamba. The multidistrict litigation in the Eastern District of Missouri involves crop damage claims from 2015 to 2020. To collect their share, claimants must submit evidence of crop yield damage due to dicamba. Co-defendant BASF will be expected to contribute to the fund.

The case of Missouri peach farmer Bill Bader is not included in the settlement as his case has already gone to trial, resulting in a $265 million verdict.

Finally, Bayer will pay roughly $650 million to resolve cases claiming it polluted waterways throughout the United States with carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which it stopped making in 1977. It also struck a separate deal with attorneys general in New Mexico, Washington state, and the District of Columbia to resolve PCB claims for $170 million.

“For decades, Monsanto manufactured and marketed PCBs, despite knowing the tremendous risk that PCBs pose to fish, wildlife and people,” Washington state Governor Jay Inslee said in a statement. “This settlement holds Monsanto accountable for its actions and will help us address the legacy PCB pollution in our waters, fish, lands and air.”

Follow @MariaDinzeo

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