Articles Posted in Roundup

While Bayer continues to settle large blocks of Roundup lawsuits, another Roundup jury trial is currently underway in California. Following a COVID delay, the trial in the case of plaintiff Donnetta Stephens has now converted to a virtual proceeding, making it one of the first “trials by zoom” in U.S. history.

This post, written on October 26, 2021, and updated on December 20, 2021, offers a snapshot of the latest Roundup lawsuit and its impact on settlement amounts in Phase Two (post-settlement) of the Roundup litigation.

[December 10, 2021 Update:  The 4th Roundup lawsuit to go trial resulted in a defense verdict for Bayer this week in the case of Donnetta Stephens v. Monsanto.  Stephens was a woman in her 70s who claimed that she used Roundup regularly in her garden for years and was subsequently diagnosed with lymphoma. The trial, as we discuss below, had to be held entirely by Zoom video conferencing (one of the first-ever “Zoom trials”) because of continuing COVID restrictions in California.

Bayer will pull Round-Up off the market in January 2023.  This post is about how this will impact the settlement amounts in future Roundup lawsuits that are not in the initial settlement.

Ever since its acquisition of Monsanto back in 2016, Bayer has been besieged by a growing tide of Roundup lawsuits. The lawsuits allege that prolonged exposure to the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, can cause cancer. Bayer has steadfastly defended the safety of its iconic weed killer product. But last week the company made a drastic shift when it announced that glyphosate-based Roundup will be pulled from the retail market starting January 2023.

Roundup-242x300Why leave the product on the market for another year?  It is hard to defend.  Bayer seems to desperately not want to make it seems like a recall.  I’m-not-actually-doing-this-thing-that-I’m-it-seems-like-I’m-doing.