Monsanto parent company, Bayer, was ordered to pay $2.1 billion in damages after a jury in Georgia found the Monsanto’s weedkiller, RoundUp, responsible for the plaintiff’s cancer. This is the latest court battle Monsanto has faced over its herbicide.
The plaintiff, John Barnes, filed a lawsuit in 2021 to recover damages related to his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which he believed was caused from his use of RoundUp in which the product’s key ingredient, glyphosate, is said to cause cancer in various studies.
“It’s been a long road for him … and he was happy that the truth related to the product (has) been exposed,” Kyle Findley, the lead trial lawyer at Arnold & Itkin, who represented the plaintiff, said.
Findley said the verdict was an “important milestone” after “another example of Monsanto’s refusal to accept responsibility for poisoning people with this toxic product.” This case marks one of the largest penalties awarded in a RoundUp-related case to date, which awarded $65 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages to Barnes, according to law firms Arnold & Itkin LLP and Kline & Specter PC.
This payout will help Barnes to get the treatment needed going forward, Findley said.
Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, has been sued more than 177,000 times “involving the weedkiller and set aside $16 billion to settle cases,” AP reported. The German-based company responded to the verdict and said it “conflicts with the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence and the consensus of regulatory bodies and their scientific assessments worldwide” and it will continue “to stand fully behind the safety” of Monsanto’s products.
This is the fourth Roundup-related case that Findley and his team won. As he continues to take on such cases, Findley said Monsanto “tried to find ways to persuade and distract and deny the connection between this product and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” He is determined to unveil “many years of cover-ups” and “backroom dealings.”
COMMENTS