Roundup Cancer Trial Ends in Defense Verdict in Missouri Court

With a series of Roundup lawsuits set for trial to begin over the coming months, each involving similar allegations that the glyphosate-based weedkiller caused non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a Missouri jury returned a defense verdict this week in favor of the manufacturers.

The Roundup trial involved a lawsuit filed by Stacey Moore, which went before a jury in the St. Louis County Circuit Court starting on October 21, and ended with a verdict in favor of Bayer and Mondanto on Wednesday.

Like thousands of other consumers, Moore argued that her non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis was directly caused by exposure to the chemicals in Roundup, pointing to a series of studies and evidence uncovered in recent years that glyphosate increases the risk of cancer.

In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) decided to classify glyphosate in Roundup as a probable cancer-causing agent, leading to more than 90,000 lawsuits filed over the past seven years.

During the litigation, internal documents and evidence have been revealed that highlight Monsanto’s failure to disclose the cancer risks associated with their profitable weedkiller, and suggested that the company has covered up negative findings associated with glyphosate for decades, and manipulated study results involving the widely used weed killer.

Following a series of massive juries awards in 2018 and 2019, Bayer agreed to pay $10 billion to settle about 120,000 Roundup product liability lawsuits. However, there are still thousands of claims left unresolved.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in complaints brought in various different U.S. District Courts, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation established a Roundup MDL in 2016, centralizing the claims before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California for coordinated discovery and a series of early “bellwether” trials to help gauge how juries are likely to respond to certain evidence and testimony that was repeated throughout the lawsuits.

However, many of the cases have been filed in state courts in Missouri, California and Oregon. The verdict in Moore’s case is at least the third win this year for Monsanto in a Missouri court, where the company’s U.S. headquarters are located and it remains a major employer in the state.

Another trial began last week in California Superior Court in San Francisco, and several more are scheduled through the end of this year and throughout 2023. The upcoming trial dates include:

• 11/29/2022 – Pied v. Monsanto in Hawaii Circuit Court (Hilo, Hawaii)
• 1/9/2023 – Griswold v. Monsanto in Missouri Circuit Court (St. Louis City)
• 1/23/2023 – Freiwald v. Monsanto in California Superior Court (San Francisco)
• 2/27/2023 – Chaplick v. Monsanto in Missouri Circuit Court (St. Louis County)
• 3/3/2023 – Weaver v. Monsanto in California Superior Court (San Diego)
• 4/3/2023 – Hedges v. Monsanto in Arizona Superior Court (Maricopa County)
• 4/24/2023 – Gordon v. Monsanto in Missouri Circuit Court (St. Louis County)
• 6/5/2023 – Lopez v. Monsanto in Florida Circuit Court (Wade County)
• 6/12/2023 – Moore v. Monsanto in Missouri County Circuit Court
• 6/26/2023 – Johnson v. Monsanto in California Superior Court (San Diego)

Monsanto and Bayer are expected to face years of future litigation over Roundup, as unresolved claims work their way to trial and new lawsuit continue to be filed by individuals diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma who previously used the weed killer.

To limit its future liability, Bayer announced last year that it will remove the active ingredient that causes cancer, glyphosate, from versions of the weed killer sold to U.S. residential customers by 2023. The products would still be sold under the Roundup label, but would use a different active ingredient, which has not been linked to a risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. However, glyphosate would still be used in products sold to agricultural businesses and farmers, and in product sold in other parts of the world, Bayer officials said.