Following two and a half hours of discussion, a Philadelphia jury ordered Bayer and Monsanto to award $78 million to a man who developed blood cancer after decades of using Roundup weed killer. The 51-year-old man used Roundup for nearly 30 years until he was eventually diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and hairy cell leukemia in 2020.
Of the total $78 million verdict, the jury awarded only $3 million in compensatory damages to cover the plaintiff’s medical bills, emotional distress, and other losses. The remaining $75 million was awarded as punitive damages, which are used to punish the responsible party’s actions if they were excessively malicious, harmful, or reckless.
One of the plaintiff’s attorneys had strong words about the trial outcome’s impact.
“This verdict sends a powerful message: profits cannot come before the health and safety of real people and their families. We can only hope this serves as a strong deterrent against Monsanto’s continued sale of dangerous products.”
— Jason Itkin, founding attorney at Arnold & Itkin, LLP
What does this mean for the Roundup lawsuit?
As with every other Roundup trial loss, Bayer and Monsanto strongly disagreed with the outcome. In a joint statement shared on the Bayer website, the two companies announced that they would appeal in an attempt to get the verdict overturned and the punitive damages greatly reduced.
But this time, Bayer and Monsanto also claimed that the outcome created a “circuit split” because it contradicted one of its previous Roundup verdicts. A circuit split occurs when two or more circuits in the U.S. Court of Appeals reach opposing conclusions about the same case. When circuits can’t resolve a split by themselves, the U.S. Supreme Court can settle the disagreement with its own opinion.
In their joint statement, Bayer and Monsanto revealed that they would be requesting review from the Supreme Court in order to receive a final decision. If it agrees to hear the case, then the Supreme Court will decide the future of the Roundup lawsuit sometime between 2025-2026.
For now, Bayer and Monsanto are trying to prevent more Roundup claims from being filed. They’ve already spent billions paying for settlements and legal fees, which is why they started pulling the original Roundup formula from all U.S. retail stores. To replace it, a new version of Roundup without the chemical glyphosate—the ingredient linked to cancer—started hitting the shelves in early 2023.
File a Roundup lawsuit
For anyone who was recently diagnosed with blood cancer after using the original version of Roundup, it’s not too late to join the lawsuit. If you or an immediate family member developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or another type of blood cancer after using Roundup weed killer, see if you qualify for compensation today.
Featured image taken by Scott Olson via Getty Images.