Concerns over Judge’s Jury Instructions

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(Transcript from today’s proceedings)

(UPDATE, 3 p.m. Pacific Time – Closing arguments are completed. The jury has received instructions for deliberations.)

Closing arguments got underway Tuesday. With the first phase of Hardeman V. Monsanto winding down plaintiff Edwin Hardeman’s attorneys issued a strong objection to Judge Vince Chhabria’s plans for instructing the jury about how to consider the issue of causation.

The way Chhabria worded his instructions makes it “impossible” for Hardeman to prevail, attorney Jennifer Moore wrote in a letter to the judge. California law sets for instructions that causation is determined when a substance or action is a “substantial factor” in causing an outcome. But the judge’s instructions would require jurors to find that Roundup was the sole factor that caused Hardeman’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Moore argued.

Judge Chhabria replied by saying he could not give “the standard California multiple causation instruction” because plaintiff’s attorneys failed to present evidence that Hardeman’s cancer was due to multiple factors. He did say, however, that he could modify the instructions slightly to try to address the concerns. In the final instruction Chhabria added wording that said a substantial factor “does not have to be the only cause of the harm.”

Monsanto has argued that Hardeman’s cancer is not due to exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides but more likely due to the hepatitis C Hardeman had for many years.

This is also an interesting little nugget in the jury instructions:

Meanwhile, in the upcoming Pilliod V. Monsanto case, motion hearings and discussion of hardship claims for prospective jurors begins next week in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland, not far from downtown San Francisco where the Hardeman case may still be underway if it goes to the second phase.

Opening statements in the Pilliod trial could begin March 21 but more likely will take place March 25 or later depending on how long the jury selection process takes.

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