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Jury Finds Bayer's Roundup Weedkiller Caused Man's Cancer (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Shares in Germany's Bayer's fell more than 12 percent on Wednesday after a second U.S. jury ruled its Roundup weed killer caused cancer. Tuesday's unanimous jury decision in San Francisco federal court was not a finding of Bayer's liability for the cancer of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman. Liability and damages will be decided by the same jury in a second trial phase beginning on Wednesday. Bayer, which denies allegations that glyphosate or Roundup cause cancer, said it was disappointed with the jury's initial decision. Bayer acquired Monsanto, the longtime maker of Roundup, for $63 billion last year. The case was only the second of some 11,200 Roundup lawsuits to go to trial in the United States. Another California man was awarded $289 million in August after a state court jury found Roundup caused his cancer. That award was later reduced to $78 million and is on appeal.
Bayer had claimed that jury was overly influenced by plaintiffs' lawyers allegations of corporate misconduct and did not focus on the science. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria called such evidence "a distraction" from the scientific question of whether glyphosate causes cancer. He split the Hardeman case into two phases: one to decide causation, the other to determine Bayer's potential liability and damages. Under Chhabria's order, the second phase would only take place if the jury found Roundup to be a substantial factor in causing Hardeman's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The jury found that it was on Tuesday.
Bayer had claimed that jury was overly influenced by plaintiffs' lawyers allegations of corporate misconduct and did not focus on the science. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria called such evidence "a distraction" from the scientific question of whether glyphosate causes cancer. He split the Hardeman case into two phases: one to decide causation, the other to determine Bayer's potential liability and damages. Under Chhabria's order, the second phase would only take place if the jury found Roundup to be a substantial factor in causing Hardeman's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The jury found that it was on Tuesday.
It's not just about evidence of culpability, but also about the insane payouts. GP is 100% right that these are ultimately paid for by the rest of us. Our legal system here might be a bit stingy in that it only awards claims for actual material damages like medical bills or loss of income, with tiny amounts (5 figures perhaps) for "mental anguish" (not having a jury decide such things helps a lot). We do not have anything like punitive damages either; any fines are paid to the state. Now if someone suffered from another one's fault, especially in cases of negligence, carelessness or wilful wrongdoing, I think a reasonable amount of punitive damages ought to be awarded. But $289 million or even $78 million to any single individual is completely insane.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Monsanto is hated for good reasons, but it should be held to account based on real evidence.
I've yet to hear a good reason which wasn't blatant bullshit, like supposedly suing completely innocent farmers, or causing suicides in India. Every single "good reason" that people have presented can be shown to be nonsense with just a 5 minute google search.
there's a nice big paper trail where the big wigs were aware of risks and ignored them. That's probably the biggest issue. e.g. the paper trail doesn't being with "There are risks, we need to research them" and then end with "We researched them and they are safe". It begins with "There are risks, we need to bury them" and ends there.
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