Hardeman v. Monsanto Co. et al.

Product liability

Northern District

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria

$80.267 million

Plaintiff's lawyers: Andrus Wagstaff PC, Aimee H. Wagstaff, Kathryn M. Forgie, David J. Wool; Moore Law Group PLLC, Jennifer A. Moore

Defense lawyers: Wilkinson Walsh, Brian L. Stekloff, Julie B. Rubenstein, Rakesh N. Kilaru, Tamarra M. Johnson

Monsanto Co. has been hit with over $190 million in court awards from plaintiffs arguing exposure to its Roundup weedkiller caused their cancers.

Of the three jury trials thus far, none may move the needle toward a global resolution to all the cases more than the one in federal court that ended in March with a $25 million verdict.

A unanimous jury awarded plaintiff Edwin Hardeman more than $80 million, which was later trimmed, after finding the Bayer AG-owned company recklessly marketed and sold its massively popular weedkillers that caused his non-Hodgking lymphoma. The six-person jury found the company liable for failure to warn, negligence and design defect claims in addition to awarding punitive damages for influencing the state of science around the safety of Roundup. Hardeman v. Monsanto Co. et al., 16-CV00525 (N.D. Cal., filed Oct. 4, 2016).

Lead plaintiffs' attorneys Aimee Wagstaff and Jennifer Moore faced heightened standards of proof after Monsanto scored a pretrial victory in convincing U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria to bifurcate the trial into two parts.

The first phase focused on whether exposure to Roundup caused Hardeman's cancer. Attorneys representing Hardeman were only allowed to proceed to the second stage on misconduct after prevailing in the first. In re: Roundup Liability Litigation, 16-MD02741 (N.D. Cal., filed Oct. 4, 2016).

Lead defense attorney Brian Stekloff of Wilkinson Walsh heavily focused on arguments that the causes of most cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma are unknown and Hardeman's cancer was more likely caused by his underlying Hepatitis.

But after they prevailed in the first, plaintiffs' attorneys sailed through the second phase on misconduct, in which the jury only deliberated for one day. They hammered home allegations Monsanto operatives were influencing the Environmental Protection Agency's opinions on Roundup.

Bayer appealed the verdict in December, arguing the "speculative case" should never have gone to trial. It currently faces roughly 42,700 lawsuits over the safety of Roundup.

Plaintiffs' attorneys at Andrus Wagstaff and defense attorneys at Wilkinson Walsh declined to comment. Kentucky-based plaintiffs' attorney Jennifer Moore did not respond to requests for comment.

-- Winston Cho