Spraying Roundup Daily Caused Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, Lawsuit Alleges

According to allegations raised in a product liability lawsuit filed against Monsanto, spraying Roundup daily for more than 20 years caused an Oregon man to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. 

The complaint (PDF) was filed by Gary Couch in the Superior Court for the state of Delaware on June 23, indicating that Monsanto failed to warn him and other consumers about the risks associated with spraying the weedkiller, and the importance of taking safety precautions.

Couch indicates that he used Roundup nearly every day over two decades working as a project superintendent at Valenzuela Engineering. During those daily applications, Couch mixed and sprayed Roundup using a five gallon backpack spray pump. In June 2015, Couch was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which is a form of cancer that has been linked to glyphosate contained in the popular Roundup products.

“During the entire time that Plaintiff was exposed to Roundup, he did not know, and could not reasonably know or have learned through reasonable diligence, that exposure to Roundup was injurious to his health or the health of others,” the lawsuit indicates. “As a result of Plaintiff’s exposure to Defendant’s Roundup, Plaintiff suffered and continues to suffer injury and treatment from his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma including, but not limited to, several cycles of chemotherapy, complications from the chemotherapy treatments and ongoing monitoring by his oncologist.”

The case joins a growing number of similar Roundup lawsuits pending against Monsanto, each involving similar allegations that farmers, landscapers and other agricultural workers may have avoided a diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma if Monsanto had provided warnings about the potential risk of cancer from spraying Roundup.

In addition to other cases pending in Delaware, where Monsanto is incorporated, and other state courts, a number of cases have been filed in various U.S. District Courts nationwide. Given similar questions of fact and law raised in the Roundup litigation, all federal cases are centralized for coordinated pretrial proceedings before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California, where it is expected that the Court will address the issues of causation before scheduling a series of early trial dates to help gauge how juries may respond to certain allegations and testimony that will be repeated throughout the cases.