R. Brent Wisner

Wisner told jurors that this was a "moment" and they had the power to force Monsanto to change its conduct. He told them that they are a part of history in the making.

"This is, frankly, their day of reckoning," Wisner said during closing arguments of his most recent trial against the Bayer-AG owned company.

In May, that Alameda County jury hit Monsanto with a verdict north of $2 billion. Pilliod v. Monsanto Co., RG17862702 (Alameda Super. Ct., filed Nov. 16, 2017). The decision came about eight months after Wisner convinced a San Francisco jury to award $289 million to a dying groundskeeper who also alleged exposure to the company's Roundup weed killer caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The San Francisco jury verdict was later reduced. Johnson v. Monsanto Co., CGC-16-550128 (San Francisco Super. Ct., filed Jan. 28, 2016).

Bayer's stock has plummeted since acquiring Monsanto, which could largely be because of Wisner's two trial victories against the company and the shadow they cast over the 13,400 plaintiffs with similar claims.

After speaking with the juries across the three Monsanto trials, Wisner said he is supremely confident that he and his team of attorneys have chosen the best and most renowned experts in determining whether pesticides cause cancer and that Monsanto has failed to find someone who specializes on that issue and is willing to testify on its behalf.

"They're not hired guns," he said. "[Our experts] are all people who have spent their lives studying the causes of cancer with pesticides."

In the multidistrict litigation before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District, Monsanto attorneys filed a motion to sanction Wisner and have him removed from the leadership committee. They did the same before his most recent trial victory in March against Monsanto in Alameda Superior Court. In re Roundup Products Liability Litigation, 16-MD02741 (N.D. Cal., filed Oct. 4, 2016).

"It seems to be a common refrain from Monsanto that in addition to ligating the case, they come after me personally and repeatedly," he said. "If I were to let that get to me, it would defeat what we're trying to do."

Efforts to remove Wisner from the cases have been unsuccessful.

Having to present extensive and complicated evidence on the state of the science around the Roundup weed killer, Wisner said it is critical to tell a cohesive and compelling story to jurors. His closing remarks in the most recent state court trial lasted roughly two-and-a-half hours.

"Frankly, that story touches on a lot of liability issues and makes the case even stronger," he said.

Wisner made his name on Monsanto litigation, but he is also working on other product liability cases. He oversees the firm's Medicare Secondary Payer cases, representing a consortium of private Medicare providers suing providers who have lost taxpayer funds to pharmaceutical companies and other large defendants, including auto insurers for refusing to pay for medical expenses.

Medicare is supposed to pay last, but it "never happens that way," Wisner said. He continued that the effort has created meaningful case law as to whether or not private insurers can bring lawsuits against these automobile insurers, including Mercury Insurance, Farmer's Insurance and Geico. MAO-MSO Recovery v. Mercury General, 17-CV02525 (C.D. Cal., filed March 31, 2017).

"It's wreaking a lot of havoc in the Medicare space because auto insurers are starting to realize they have massive exposure since they haven't been checking with private Medicare providers," he continued.

-- Winston Cho