Roundup Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Lawsuit Filed Against Monsanto

A product liability lawsuit filed by an Arizona maintenance man alleges that three years of exposure to the weedkiller Roundup caused him to develop acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), indicating that Monsanto failed to adequately disclose the potential cancer risks. 

The complaint (PDF) was filed by Isaac Anchondo in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on September 15, maintaining that he could have avoided the acute lymphoblastic leukemia diagnosis if Monsanto had provided proper warnings and instructions about Roundup.

Anchondo indicates that he was exposed to Roundup from around 2012 through 2015, both while working as a maintenance man in Arizona, as well as using the weedkiller on his own property. Roundup was frequently purchased in its liquid form, and Anchondo indicates that he did not know that exposure to the glyphosate-based weedkiller may be injurious to his health until at least July 2015.

In September 2015, Anchondo was diagnosed with acute lyphoblastic leukemia, which he directly relates to his use of Roundup.

Usually associated with childhood leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a cancer that develops in bone marrow. It can cause bruising, enlarged lymph nodes, bone pain, bleeding gums, and results in frequent infections.

“[Monsanto] had sole access to material facts concerning the nature of the risks associated with its Roundup products as expressly stated within its warnings and labels, and [Monsanto] knew that consumers and users such as [Anchondo] could not have reasonably discovered that the risks expressly included in Roundup warnings and labels were inadequate and inaccurate,” according to the complaint. “Had the warnings and labels for Roundup products accurately and adequately set forth the true risks associated with use of such products… [Anchondo] could have avoided the injuries complained of herein.”

In mid-2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate contained in Roundup as a probable human carcinogen. The move has sparked world-wide concerns about why Monsanto failed to provide warnings and recommend safety precautions for users of Roundup, and sparked the avalanche of recent product liability lawsuits filed in courts nationwide.

Anchondo’s lawsuit joins hundreds of Roundup cancer lawsuits filed by individuals throughout the United States, each raising similar allegations that a non-Hodgkins lymphoma diagnosis may have been avoided if Monsanto had provided adequate warnings.

Given the similar questions of fact and law presented in lawsuits filed throughout the federal court system, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) established consolidated pretrial proceedings for all federal Roundup cases in October 2016, centralizing the claims before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California to reduce duplicative discovery, prevent conflicting rulings and serve the convenience of the parties, witnesses and the courts.

As part of the coordinated MDL proceedings, Judge Chhabria has previously determined that the Roundup litigation will be bifurcated, first addressing general causation about the link between the widely used weedkiller and non-Hodgkins lymphoma, as well as other forms of cancer, before addressing case-specific issues about whether Roundup caused cancer for each individual plaintiff.

Following resolution of any motions to dismiss based on general causation, if a Roundup cancer settlements or another resolution for the litigation is not reached during the first phase of discovery, it is expected that Judge Chhabria will establish a bellwether process, where a small group of cases will be prepared for early trial dates to help gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that is likely to be repeated throughout the lawsuits.