The much-anticipated Roundup cancer trial set to get underway in two weeks in Monsanto’s former hometown of St. Louis is being rescheduled, according to the a spokeswoman for the St. Louis County Court where the trial was set to begin Aug 19.
Court spokeswoman Christine Bertelson said Judge Brian May, who is overseeing the case of Gordon v. Monsanto, communicated late Monday that the trial was being continued, but no official order has yet been entered into the court file. Jury questionnaires were due next week and the voir dire selection of the jury was set for Aug. 18 with opening statements Aug. 19.
Judge May is rescheduling the trial for January and will issue an order within the next few days, according to Bertelson.
Aimee Wagstaff, lead attorney for plaintiff Sharlean Gordon, said that a continuance was a possibility but nothing official was determined at this point.
“The judge has not entered an order continuing the trial,” Wagstaff said.”Of course, as with every trial, a continuance is always a possibility for factors often outside control of the parties. Ms. Gordon is ready to try her case on August 19 and will be disappointed if the case is in fact continued. We are ready on whatever day the trial does commence.”
Gordon developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after using Roundup herbicides for 25 years at her residence in South Pekin, Illinois. Gordon has suffered extensive debilitation due to her disease. Gordon’s stepfather, who also used Roundup at the family home where Gordon lived into adulthood, died of cancer. The case is actually derived from a larger case filed in July 2017 on behalf of more than 75 plaintiffs. Gordon is the first of that group to go to trial.
Before selling to Germany-based Bayer AG last summer, Monsanto was headquartered in the St. Louis, Missouri area for decades, and still maintains a large employment and philanthropic presence there. Bayer recently announced it would add 500 new jobs to the St. Louis area.
Last week, Judge May denied Monsanto’s motion seeking a summary judgment in favor of Monsanto, and denied the company’s bid to exclude plaintiff’s expert witnesses.
Bayer has been under great pressure to settle the cases, or at least avoid the specter of another high-profile courtroom loss after losing all three of the first Roundup cancer trials. The company is currently facing more than 18,000 plaintiffs alleging that exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup, caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The lawsuits allege that Monsanto knew of the cancer risk but failed to warn users and worked to suppress scientific information about the cancer risk.
It is not uncommon for parties to discuss a potential settlement ahead of trial, and it would not be surprising for Bayer to offer a settlement for the Gordon case alone given the negative publicity that has been associated with each of the three trials. Evidence publicized through the trials has exposed years of secretive conduct by Monsanto that juries have found warranted more than $2 billion in punitive damages. The judges in the cases have also been harshly critical of what the evidence has shown about Monsanto’s conduct.
U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria said this about the company: “There’s a fair amount of evidence that the only thing Monsanto cared about was undermining the people who were raising concerns about whether Roundup caused cancer. Monsanto didn’t seem concerned at all about getting at the truth of whether glyphosate caused cancer.”
Last week, Bloomberg reported that Bayer AG Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann said he would consider a “financially reasonable” settlement. The company’s shares have plummeted since the first jury verdict came down Aug. 10 awarding $289 million to California school groundskeeper Dewayne “Lee” Johnson. Monsanto has appealed the verdict.
Some legal observers said that Bayer could be angling to delay the trial and/or simply distract plaintiff’s attorneys with settlement speculation.
