Bayer’s Monsanto Unit Slapped with $2 Billion Blowout Verdict Awarded to Couple with Cancer


Bayer, which bought Monsanto for $63 billion nearly a year ago, just lost the third trial over claims its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer. A jury in Oakland, California awarded more than $2 billion in punitive damages to a husband and wife who claimed they got cancer after using RoundUp for residential landscaping for over 30 years. Monsanto is the named defendant in similar US lawsuits filed by at least 13,400 plaintiffs.

In addition, French investigators opened an inquiry on Bayer’s Monsanto Unit following the filing of a complaint by Le Monde newspaper alleging that Monsanto had kept a file of 200 names, including journalists and lawmakers, in hopes of influencing positions on pesticides.


Not a great day for Bayer and its Monsanto unit.

The first piece of bad news was that Bayer just lost the third trial in a row over claims its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer.

The jury found Roundup had been defectively designed, that the
company failed to warn of the herbicide’s cancer risk and that the
company acted negligently.

In the stunning verdict, sure to be appealed, a jury in state court in Oakland, California, issued its verdict Monday, awarding a total of more than $2 billion in punitive damages to a husband and wife over there cancer claims.

The jury hit Monsanto with another $1 BILLION in punitive damages for Alva Pilliod. The total is a $2.055 billion verdict.
— Dorothy M. Atkins (@doratki) May 13, 2019

As Bloomberg reports, the jurors agreed that Alva and Alberta Pilliod’s use
of Roundup over about 30 years for residential landscaping was a
“substantial factor” in causing them to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

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