A jury handed down a $2.25 billion verdict, including $2 billion in punitive damages, against agrochemical giant Monsanto, according to the lawyers of a man who said he developed cancer from using the company’s weed killer, Roundup.
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On Friday a jury returned a unanimous verdict, finding that Roundup was a cancer-causing product, that Monsanto was negligent and that Monsanto failed to warn about the dangers of Roundup, McKivison’s lawyers Tom Kline and Jason Itkin said in a joint statement.
In an emailed statement, Bayer, Monsanto’s parent company, said it planned to appeal the verdict and what it called the “unconstitutionally excessive” damages.
It said the jury’s verdict “conflicts with the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence and worldwide regulatory and scientific assessments” on Roundup.
But the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer found in 2015 that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”.
Bayer agreed in 2020 to pay about $10 billion in a settlement to tens of thousands of claimants over the allegation that Roundup causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, without admitting wrongdoing. »
