Roundup NHL Lawsuit Filed Over Farmer’s Cancer Diagnosis Following Decades Of Use

A North Carolina farmer who developed non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL) indicates that the cancer diagnosis was a direct result of exposure to Roundup, after spraying the popular weedkiller for more than two decades.

The complaint (PDF) was filed by William Prince in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina on May 26, alleging that Monsanto misrepresented the safety of Roundup and it’s active ingredient, glyphosate, resulting in long-term exposure that increases the cancer risk for farmers and others in the agriculture industry.

Prince states that he sprayed Roundup approximately 90 days each year, for at least 22 years, while working as a farmer between 1976 and 1998. Although he followed all safety and precautionary warnings while using Roundup, Prince was subsequently diagnosed with NHL, which has recently been identified as a potential risk associated with glyphosate contained in the weedkiller.

“Had [Monsanto] properly disclosed the risks associated with Roundup, Plaintiff would have avoided the risk of NHL by not using Roundup,” according to the complaint. “Defendant’s failure to provide adequate warnings and instructions regarding the dangers and risks associated with Roundup was a proximate cause of Plaintiff’s injuries.”

Concerns about the link between Roundup and NHL emerged in mid-2015, after the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a likely cancer-causing agent.

Since then, hundreds of similar Roundup lawsuits have been filed by farmer, landscapers, agricultural works and others diagnosed with cancer following regular use of the weedkiller.

Given the similar questions of fact and law raised in the complaints, Prince’s case will be consolidated with other Roundup claims, which are centralized before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California as part of a federal MDL, or multidistrict litigation. However, if Roundup settlements or another resolution for the litigation is not reached following the coordinated pretrial proceedings, each of the cases may be remanded back to the U.S. District Court where it was originally filed for a separate trial date in the future.