Monsanto Faces Third Roundup Trial A Day After $80M Verdict

Introduction

A day after a California jury awarded $80 million to a man suffering from cancer due to Roundup use, an Oakland jury heard opening statements for a married couple's claim filed against Monsanto that the weed killer caused them non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL).

This is the third Roundup trial to go before a jury; it involves claims filed by an elderly couple, who allege that the agro-giant, Monsanto, failed to warn them about the hazards of glyphosate exposure from its popular herbicide. At the start of the trial, the plaintiffs' attorney told a 16-member jury that the couple was using Roundup on their four properties between 1975 and 2011 to kill weeds. They sprayed roughly 1,500 gallons of Roundup and stopped it when the husband came across a commercial, saying it could probably cause cancer. The couple filed their case in 2017 as both were diagnosed with NHL. Wisner told the jurors that he would specify in the closing arguments how the evidence against the company justifies compensatory and punitive damages. The trial's closing arguments are expected by the end of April. An attorney representing Monsanto argued that the couple was suffering from numerous diseases for years and asked the jury to consider the evidence, which says Roundup may not have caused their cancers.

The suit is one of the 11,000 cases filed against Monsanto over allegations that the company hid cancer risk linked to the herbicide, ran a campaign of misinformation to convince government agencies, farmers, and the general public that Roundup was non-hazardous.

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