Monsanto Litigation Update:

As many have heard about the $289,000,000.00 damage verdict rendered in San Francisco, a jury having found that Roundup causes Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Since that time, the Trial Judge has reduced the award to $78,000,000.00 and the case is now on appeal. It will most probably be several years before the appeal is complete.

In the interim, the litigation continues to move forward as the Multi-District Litigation Judge has set the next case for Trial on February 25, 2019. The Judge has determined that the experts are qualified to testify on general causation, i.e., whether Roundup can, generally, cause cancer. However, the Judge has expressed significant reservations about whether Plaintiff can actually establish that Roundup caused cancer in the person whose case is being tried. The Judge’s opinion stated that the link between Roundup and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma “seems fairly weak.” As a result, the Judge has set a particularly unusual procedure whereby the case will be tried.

The Court is going to require the Plaintiff’s counsel put on evidence of general and case specific medical causation before allowing the Jury to hear evidence of liability. If the Jury believes that the cancer was caused by Roundup, the case will go into the Liability Phase.

Unfortunately, this is not good. Generally, the horrific documents shedding light on the conduct of Monsanto help to explain the total context of the litigation, strengthening the issue of medical causation. Nonetheless, the case is scheduled to go forward. We are obviously hoping for a good result despite the unusual order in which the evidence will be presented to the Jury. "

roundup@onderlaw