agriculture

Some U.S. Roundup plaintiffs balk at signing Bayer settlement deals; $160,000 average payout eyed

Print Email Share Tweet
Posted on by Carey Gillam

Plaintiffs in the U.S. Roundup litigation are starting to learn the details of what Bayer AG’s $10 billion settlement of cancer claims actually means for them individually, and some are not liking what they see.

Bayer said in late June it had negotiated settlements with several major plaintiffs’ law firms in a deal that would effectively close out the bulk of more than 100,000 pending claims against Monsanto, which was purchased by Bayer in 2018. Plaintiffs in the litigation allege they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma from exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup and other herbicides made with a chemical called glyphosate, and that Monsanto covered up the risks.

While the deal initially seemed like good news for the plaintiffs – some who’ve struggled for years with cancer treatments and others who sued on behalf of deceased spouses – many are finding they could end up with little to no money, depending upon a range of factors. The law firms, however, could pocket hundreds of millions of dollars.

“It’s a win for the law firms and a slap in the face of the harmed” said one plaintiff, who did not want to be named.

Plaintiffs are being told they must decide in the next few weeks if they’re going to accept the settlements, even though they won’t know how much they will personally be paid until much later. All the settlement deals order the plaintiffs not to talk publicly about the details, threatening them with sanctions if they discuss the settlements with anyone other than “immediate family members” or a financial advisor.

This has angered some who say they are considering rejecting the settlements in favor of seeking out other law firms to handle their claims. This reporter has reviewed documents sent to multiple plaintiffs.

For those who do agree, payments could be made as early as February, though the process of paying all the plaintiffs is expected to stretch out a year or more. Communications sent out from law firms to their Roundup clients sketch out both the process each cancer-stricken individual will need to go through to obtain a financial payout and what those payouts might amount to. The terms of the deals vary from law firm to law firm, meaning similarly situated plaintiffs may end up with vastly different individual settlements.

One of the stronger deals appears to be one negotiated by The Miller Firm, and even that is disappointing to some of the firm’s clients. In communications to clients, the firm said it was able to negotiate roughly $849 million from Bayer to cover the claims of more than 5,000 Roundup clients. The firm estimates the average gross settlement value for each plaintiff at roughly $160,000. That gross amount will further be reduced by the deduction of attorneys’ fees and costs.

Though attorneys’ fees can vary by firm and plaintiff, many in the Roundup litigation are charging 30-40 percent in contingency fees.

To be eligible for the settlement, plaintiffs must have medical records supporting diagnosis of certain types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and be able to show they were exposed at least a year before their diagnosis.

The Miller Firm has been at the forefront of the Roundup litigation since the outset, unearthing many of the damning internal Monsanto documents that helped win all three Roundup trials held to date. The Miller Firm handled two of those trials, bringing in lawyers from the Los Angeles firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman to help with the case of  Dewayne “Lee” Johnson after Miller Firm founder Mike Miller was severely injured in an accident just prior to trial. The two firms additionally worked together in winning the case of husband-and-wife plaintiffs, Alva and Alberta Pilliod.  Johnson was awarded $289 million and the Pilliods were awarded more than $2 billion though the trial judges in each case lowered the awards.

Earlier this month, a California appeals court rejected Monsanto’s effort to overturn the Johnson verdict, ruling that there was “abundant” evidence that Roundup products caused Johnson’s cancer but reducing Johnson’s award to $20.5 million. Appeals are still pending in the other two verdicts against Monsanto.

Scoring Plaintiffs

To determine how much each plaintiff receives from the settlement with Bayer, a third-party administrator will score each individual using factors that include the type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma each plaintiff  developed; the plaintiff’s age at diagnosis; the severity of the person’s cancer and the extent of treatment they endured; other risk factors; and the amount of exposure they had to Monsanto herbicides.

One element of the settlement that caught many plaintiffs off guard was learning that those who ultimately receive money from Bayer will have to use their funds to pay back part of the costs of their cancer treatments that were covered by Medicare or private insurance. With some cancer treatments running into the hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars, that could quickly erase a plaintiff’s payout. The law firms are lining up third-party contractors who will negotiate with the insurance providers to seek discounted reimbursements, the plaintiffs have been told. Typically in this sort of mass tort litigation, those medical liens can be substantially reduced, the law firms said.

In one aspect of the deal welcomed by plaintiffs, the settlements will be structured to avoid tax liability, according to the information provided to plaintiffs.

Risks in Not Settling  

The law firms must get a majority of their plaintiffs to agree to the terms of the settlements in order for them to proceed. According to the information provided to plaintiffs, settlements are desired now because of a number of risks associated with continuing to pursue additional trials. Among the risks identified:

  • Bayer has threatened to file for bankruptcy, and if the company did take that route, settling Roundup claims would take far longer and likely ultimately result in far less money for plaintiffs.
  • The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a letter last August telling Monsanto that the agency won’t allow for a cancer warning on Roundup. That helps Monsanto’s future chances of prevailing in court.
  • Covid-related court delays mean additional Roundup trials are unlikely for a year or more.

It is not unusual for plaintiffs in mass tort litigation to walk away disappointed even with seemingly large settlements negotiated for their cases.  The 2019 book “Mass Tort Deals: Backroom Bargaining in Multidistrict Litigation” by Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, the Fuller E. Callaway Chair of Law at the University of Georgia,  makes the case that a lack of checks and balances in mass tort litigation benefits nearly everyone involved except the plaintiffs.

Burch cites as an example litigation over the acid-reflux medicine Propulsid, and said she found that of the 6,012 plaintiffs who entered into the settlement program, only 37 ultimately received any money. The rest received no payouts but had already agreed to dismiss their lawsuits as a condition of entering into the settlement program. Those 37 plaintiffs collectively received little more than $6.5 million (roughly $175,000 each on average), while the lead law firms for the plaintiffs received $27 million, according to Burch,

Setting aside what individual plaintiffs may or may not walk away with,  some legal observers close to the Roundup litigation said a greater good has been achieved with the exposure of corporate wrongdoing by Monsanto.

Among the evidence that has emerged through the litigation are internal Monsanto documents showing the company engineered the publishing of scientific papers that falsely appeared to be created solely by independent scientists; the funding of, and collaborating with, front groups that were used to try to discredit scientists reporting harm with Monsanto’s herbicides; and collaborations with certain officials inside the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect and promote Monsanto’s position that its products were not cancer-causing.

Several countries around the world, as well as local governments and school districts, have moved to ban glyphosate herbicides, and/or other pesticides because of the revelations of the Roundup litigation.

(Story first appeared in Environmental Health News.)

Appeals court upholds groundskeeper’s Roundup cancer trial win over Monsanto

Print Email Share Tweet
Posted on by Carey Gillam

In yet another court loss for Monsanto owner Bayer AG, an appeals court rejected the company’s effort to overturn the trial victory notched by a California school groundskeeper who alleged exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicides caused him to develop cancer, though the court did say damages should be cut to $20.5 million.

The Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District of California said Monday that Monsanto’s arguments were unpersuasive and Dewayne “Lee” Johnson was entitled to collect $10.25 million in  compensatory damages and another $10.25 million in punitive damages. That is down from a total of $78 million the trial judge allowed.

“In our view, Johnson presented abundant—and certainly substantial— evidence that glyphosate, together with the other ingredients in Roundup products, caused his cancer,” the court stated. “Expert after expert provided evidence both that Roundup products are capable of causing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma…  and caused Johnson’s cancer in particular.”

The court further noted that “there was overwhelming evidence that Johnson has suffered, and will continue to suffer for the rest of his life, significant pain and suffering.”

The court said that Monsanto’s argument that scientific findings about glyphosate’s links to cancer constituted a “minority view” was not supported.

Notably, the appeals court added that punitive damages were in order because there was sufficient evidence that Monsanto acted with “willful and conscious disregard of others’ safety.”

Mike Miller, whose Virginia law firm represented Johnson at trial along with the Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman firm of Los Angeles, said he was cheered at the court’s confirmation that Johnson developed cancer from his use of Roundup and that the court affirmed the award of punitive damages for “Monsanto’s willful misconduct.”

“Mr Johnson continues to suffer from his injuries. We are proud to fight for Mr Johnson and his pursuit of justice,” Miller said.

Monsanto owes annual interest at the rate of 10 percent from April of 2018 until it pays the final judgment.

The reduction in damages is tied in part to the fact that doctors have told Johnson his cancer is terminal and he is not expected to live very much longer. The court agreed with Monsanto that because compensatory damages are designed to compensate for future pain, mental suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, physical impairment, etc…  Johnson’s short life expectancy legally means the future “non-economic” damages awarded by the trial court must be reduced.

Brent Wisner, one of Johnson’s trial attorneys, said the reduction in damages was the result of a “deep flaw in California tort law.”

“Basically, California law does not allow a plaintiff to recover for a shortened life expectancy,” Wisner said. “This effectively rewards a defendant for killing a plaintiff, as opposed to just injuring him. It is madness.”

A spotlight on Monsanto’s conduct

It was just two months after Bayer bought Monsanto, in August 2018, that a unanimous jury awarded Johnson $289 million, including $250 million in punitive damages, finding that not only did Monsanto’s herbicides cause Johnson to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but that the company knew of the cancer risks and failed to warn Johnson. The lawsuit involved two Monsanto glyphosate herbicide products – Roundup and Ranger Pro.

The trial judge lowered the total verdict to $78 million but Monsanto appealed the reduced amount. Johnson cross appealed to reinstate the $289 million verdict.

The Johnson trial was covered by media outlets around the world and put a spotlight on questionable Monsanto conduct. Lawyers for Johnson presented jurors with internal company emails and other records showing Monsanto scientists discussing ghostwriting scientific papers to try to shore up support for the safety of the company’s products, along with communications detailing plans to discredit critics, and to quash a government evaluation of the toxicity of glyphosate, the key chemical in Monsanto’s products.

Internal documents also showed that Monsanto expected the International Agency for Research on Cancer would classify glyphosate as a probable or possible human carcinogen in March of 2015 (the classification was as a probable carcinogen) and worked out a plan in advance to discredit the cancer scientists after they issued their classification.

Tens of thousands of plaintiffs have filed lawsuits against Monsanto making claims similar to Johnson’s, and two additional trials have taken place since the Johnson trial. Both those trials also resulted in large verdicts against Monsanto. Both are also under appeal.

In June, Bayer said it had reached a  settlement agreement with attorneys representing 75 percent of the roughly 125,000 filed and yet-to-be filed claims initiated by U.S. plaintiffs who blame exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup for their development of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Bayer said it will provide $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion to resolve the litigation. But lawyers representing more than 20,000 additional plaintiffs say they have not agreed to settle with Bayer and those lawsuits are expected to continue to work their way through the court system.

In a statement issued after the court ruling, Bayer said it stands behind the safety of Roundup: “The appeal court’s decision to reduce the compensatory and punitive damages is a step in the right direction, but we continue to believe that the jury’s verdict and damage awards are inconsistent with the evidence at trial and the law. Monsanto will consider its legal options, including filing an appeal with the Supreme Court of California.”

EPA removes name of U.S. official from warning of glyphosate cancer links

Print Email Share Tweet
Posted on by Carey Gillam

(Update with EPA explanation)

In an unusual move, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has deleted the name of a high-ranking U.S.  health official from a public comment that warned of cancer links to the weed killing chemical glyphosate and called for a halt to industry manipulation of research.

The public comment in question was submitted to the EPA and posted on the agency’s website under the name of Patrick Breysse, the director of the National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The ATSDR is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The comment under Breysse’s name was filed last year with the EPA in response to an updated agency review of glyphosate and urged the agency to review “documented evidence” that glyphosate was harmful and should be banned.

For months the comment sat on the EPA website under Breysse’s name. It was only after U.S. Right to Know sought commentary last week from Breysse about his statement that the EPA removed his name. The comment now is attributed to “Anonymous,” after Breysse’s employer determined it was not actually submitted by him, according to the EPA.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides and was popularized by Monsanto, a unit of Bayer AG. It is considered the most widely used herbicide in the world. It is also one of the most controversial and is the subject of lawsuits brought by tens of thousands of people who claim they developed cancer because of exposure to Roundup and other glyphosate herbicides made by Monsanto.

The EPA has steadfastly defended the safety of glyphosate despite findings by many independent scientists that glyphosate herbicides can cause a range of illness and disease, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The comment under Breysse’s name contradicted the EPA’s position:

“Numerous studies have linked its use to an increase in lymphomas, and it’s time we stopped letting the chemical industry manipulate research to serve its own interest. U.S. citizens need to trust the Environmental Protection Agency to operate in our best interest, which means weighing evidence from neutral scientific sources not vested in the outcome.”

Notably, Breysse is also the ATSDR official who was pressured by EPA officials in 2015 at the behest of Monsanto to put a halt to a review of glyphosate toxicity then just getting underway at the ATSDR. The push to delay the ATSDR review of glyphosate came because Monsanto feared the ATSDR would agree with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in finding cancer links to glyphosate, internal Monsanto correspondence shows.

One internal Monsanto email said EPA official Jess Rowland told Monsanto he should “get a medal” if he was successful in killing the ATSDR glyphosate review.

The ATSDR review was in fact delayed until 2019 after the pressure from Monsanto and EPA officials. When the report was finally released, it did confirm Monsanto’s fears, lending support to the 2015 IARC concerns about links between cancer and glyphosate. The ATSDR report was signed by Breysse.

When asked about the change in attribution to the public comment, the EPA said it removed Breysse’s name after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which oversees ATSDR, told EPA the comment was not submitted by Breysse and asked that it be deleted or edited. Rather than delete the comment, EPA elected to keep the comment in the docket but changed the submitter’s name to “anonymous.”

The EPA said it does not screen or authenticate comments submitted.

The press office for the National Center for Environmental Health also said Breysse did not submit the comment in question. Breysse did not respond to a request to confirm or deny his authorship of the comment on the EPA website.

The original comment and the changed one are shown below:

Bayer backs away from plan to contain future Roundup cancer claims

Print Email Share Tweet
Posted on by Carey Gillam

Monsanto owner Bayer AG is backing away from a plan to contain future Roundup cancer claims after a federal judge made it clear he would not approve the scheme, which would delay new trials and limit jury decision-making.

The plan concocted by Bayer and a small group of lawyers was filed last month in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California as part of a effort by Bayer to put an end to sweeping litigation that has so far led to three losses in three jury trials, staggering punitive damage awards and shareholder discontent. More than 100,000 people in the United States claim exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup herbicides caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and that Monsanto long knew about and covered up the cancer risks.

On Monday Judge Vince Chhabria issued an order setting a hearing on the matter for July 24 and making it clear he would not approve the settlement plan. He was “skeptical of the propriety and fairness of the proposed settlement,” Chhabria wrote in the order.

Prior to the judge’s order, multiple parties filed notices of their own opposition to the Bayer plan; citing “major deviations from ordinary practices” called for in the proposed settlement.

In response, on Wednesday the group of lawyers who had structured the deal with Bayer filed a notice of withdrawal of their plan.

The proposed settlement plan for future class action litigation was separate from the settlement agreement Bayer made with lawyers for plaintiffs who have already filed cases and is designed to help Bayer contain and manage future liability.  Under the structure put together by Bayer and a small group of plaintiffs’ lawyers the class action settlement would have applied to anyone exposed to Roundup who had not filed a lawsuit or retained a lawyer as of June 24, 2020, regardless of whether or not that person already had been diagnosed with cancer they believe was due to Roundup exposure.

The plan would have delayed the filing of new cases for four years, and called for the establishment of a five-member “science panel” that would take any future findings on cancer claims out of the hands of  juries. Instead, a “Class Science Panel” would be established to determine whether Roundup can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and if so, at what minimum exposure levels.  Bayer would get to appoint two of the five panel members. If the panel determined there was no causal connection between Roundup and non-Hodgkin lymphoma then the class members would be barred from future such claims.

Judge Chhabria took issue with the whole idea of a science panel. In his order, the judge wrote:

“In an area where the science may be evolving, how could it be appropriate to lock in a decision from a panel of scientists for all future cases? For examine, imagine the panel decides in 2023 that Roundup is not capable of causing cancer. Then imagine that a new, reliable study is published in 2028 which strongly undermines the panel’s conclusion. If a Roundup user is diagnosed with NHL in 2030, is it appropriate to tell them that they’re bound by the 2023 decision of the panel because they did not opt out of a settlement in 2020?”

Bayer said it would set aside $1.25 billion for the arrangement. The money would be used to compensate class members diagnosed with NHL for the “effects of the delay” in litigation, and to fund research into the diagnosis and treatment of NHL, among other things.

The plaintiffs’  attorneys who put the plan together with Bayer stood to make more than $150 million in fees payable by Bayer. They are not the same law firms that have led the litigation to date. This group of law firms include Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein; Audet & Partners; The Dugan Law Firm; and lawyer Samuel Issacharoff, Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law.

Several members of the lead law firms who won the three Roundup cancer trials oppose the proposed class action settlement plan, saying it would deprive future plaintiffs of their rights while enriching those other lawyers who have not previously been at the forefront of the Roundup litigation.

It is not clear how the withdrawal of this proposed class action settlement plan might impact the larger settlement of existing claims. Bayer said last month it will pay up to $9.6 billion to resolve roughly 75 percent of the current claims and will continue working to settle the rest. That settlement does not require court approval.

Bayer issued a statement Wednesday saying it remains “strongly committed to a resolution that simultaneously addresses both the current litigation on reasonable terms and a viable solution to manage and resolve potential future litigation.”

U.S. regulators relied for years on flawed pesticide data provided by Dow Chemical

Print Email Share Tweet
Posted on by Carey Gillam

For years, U.S. regulators relied on falsified data provided by Dow Chemical to allow unsafe levels of the chemical chlorpyrifos into American homes, according to a new analysis from University of Washington researchers.

The analysis reexamines work from the 1970s sponsored by Dow and submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to guide the agency in establishing what scientists refer to as a “no-observed-adverse-effect-level” or NOAEL. Such thresholds are used to determine what types of use and at what level a chemical exposure can be allowed and still be considered “safe.”

According to the new analysis, published online July 3 in the journal Environmental International, the inaccurate findings were the result of a chlorpyrifos dosing study conducted by researcher Frederick Coulston and colleagues from the Albany Medical College in the early 1970s for Dow.

The authors of the new paper reexamining that prior work are Lianne Sheppard, Seth McGrew and Richard Fenske of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health at the University of Washington.

While the study was authored by the Coulston group, the analysis was completed by a Dow statistician and concluded that 0.03 mg/kg-day was the chronic NOAEL level for chlorpyrifos in humans. But the new analysis by the University of Washington researchers found that wildly overstated the margin of safety. Had the data been properly analyzed a lower NOAEL of 0.014 mg/kg-day would have been found, they said.

The Coulston study did not undergo peer review but still was used by the EPA for risk assessments throughout much of the 1980′s and 1990′s, the University of Washington researchers reported.

The researchers concluded: “During that period, EPA allowed chlorpyrifos to be registered for multiple residential uses that were later cancelled to reduce potential health impacts to children and infants. Had appropriate analyses been employed in the evaluation of this study, it is likely that many of those registered uses of chlorpyrifos would not have been authorized by EPA. This work demonstrates that reliance by pesticide regulators on research results that have not been properly peer-reviewed may needlessly endanger the public.”

Widely used

Commonly known as the active ingredient in the brand name Lorsban, chlorpyrifos insecticides were introduced by Dow Chemical in 1965 and have been used widely in agricultural settings. The largest agricultural market for chlorpyrifos is corn but the pesticide is also used by farmers growing soybeans, fruit and nut trees, Brussels sprouts, cranberries, and cauliflower, as well as other row crops. Residues of the chemical are commonly found in food. Non-agricultural uses include golf courses, turf, green houses, and utilities.

Despite the science promoted by Dow, independent scientific research has shown mounting evidence of the dangers of chlorpyrifos, particularly to young children. Scientists have found that prenatal exposures to chlorpyrifos are associated with lower birth weight, reduced IQ, the loss of working memory, attention disorders, and delayed motor development.

The American Academy for Pediatrics, which represents more than 66,000 pediatricians and pediatric surgeons, has warned that continued use of the chemical puts developing fetuses, infants, children and pregnant women at great risk.

Chlorpyrifos is so dangerous that the European Food Safety Authority has stated that there is no safe exposure level.

The EPA reached an agreement with Dow in 2000 to phase out all residential uses of the chemical because of research showing the chemical is dangerous to the developing brains of babies and young children. In 2012, chlorpyrifos was banned from use around schools.

In February 2020, after pressure from consumer, medical, scientific groups and in face of growing calls for bans around the world, Corteva AgriScience, a successor corporation to a merger of Dow and DuPont, said it would phase out production of chlorpyrifos. The chemical, however, remains legal for other companies to make and sell.

Human subjects

The study that is the subject of the new paper by the University of Washington researchers was overseen in 1971 by the Albany Medical College’s Institute of Experimental Pathology and Toxicology. The study included 16 healthy adult male inmates from a pool of volunteers at Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Dannemora, New York.

The volunteers were randomized into four experimental groups, including one control group, whose members received a daily placebo. The members of the three other groups received daily chlorpyrifos treatments at three different doses.  The study took place over 63 days.

The new analysis found several problems with the study, including the omission of eight valid baseline measurements for one of the three treatment groups.

“Such an omission of valid data without justification is a form of data falsification that violates all standard codes of ethical research practice and is classified as outright research misconduct,” the University of Washington researchers concluded.

The researchers said that chlorpyrifos “passed through the regulatory process without much debate,” even though there was “growing evidence that it might pose a health hazard in residential environments.”

“The Coulston Study misled regulators by omitting valid data,” and “may have adversely impacted public health” for several years, the University of Washington paper concludes.

Bayer settles U.S. Roundup, dicamba and PCB litigation for more than $10 billion

Print Email Share Tweet
Posted on by Carey Gillam

In an expensive clean-up of Monsanto litigation messes, Bayer AG said Wednesday that it will pay out more than $10 billion to settle tens of thousands of U.S. claims brought against Monsanto over its Roundup herbicide, as well as $400 million to resolve lawsuits over Monsanto’s dicamba herbicide and $650 million for PCB pollution claims.

The resolutions come two years after Bayer bought Monsanto for $63 billion and almost immediately saw share prices plummet due to the Roundup liability.

Bayer announced that it will pay $10.1 billion to $10.9 billion total to resolve roughly 75 percent of the claims by an estimated 125,000 people who allege exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup weed killers caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The deal includes plaintiffs who have retained attorneys with the intent to sue but whose cases have not yet been filed, Bayer said.  Within that total, a payment of $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion will resolve the current litigation and $1.25 billion is being set aside to support potential future litigation, the company said.

The plaintiffs included in the settlement are those signed with the law firms that have been leading the Roundup federal multi-district litigation (MDL) and include The Miller Firm of Virginia, the Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman firm of Los Angeles and the Andrus Wagstaff firm of Denver, Colorado.

“After years of hard fought litigation and a year of intense mediation I am glad to see our clients will now be compensated,” said Mike Miller, of the Miller law firm.

The Miller firm and the Baum Hedlund firm worked together to win the first case to go to trial, that of California groundskeeper Dewayne “Lee” Johnson. Andrus Wagstaff won the second trial and The Miller Firm won the third case to go to trial. In all, the three trials resulted in jury verdicts totaling more than $2.3 billion, though the trial judges in each case lowered the verdicts.

The juries in all three trials found that Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicides, such as Roundup, caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that Monsanto covered up the risks and failed to warns users.

Each of the three trial verdicts are going through the appeals process now and Bayer said the plaintiffs in those cases are not included in the settlement.

Bayer said future Roundup claims will be part of a class agreement subject to approval by Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, who ordered the year-long mediation process that led to the settlement.

The agreement would take any future findings on cancer claims out of the hands of  juries, Bayer said. Instead, there will be the creation of an independent “Class Science Panel.” The Class Science Panel will determine whether Roundup can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and if so, at what minimum exposure levels.  Both the plaintiffs in the class action and Bayer will be bound by the Class Science Panel’s determination.  If the Class Science Panel determines there is no causal connection between Roundup and non-Hodgkin lymphoma then the class members will be barred from claiming otherwise in any future litigation against Bayer.

Bayer said the Class Science Panel’s determination is expected to take several years and class members will not be permitted to proceed with Roundup claims prior to that determination. They also cannot seek punitive damages, Bayer said.

“The Roundup™ agreements are designed as a constructive and reasonable resolution to a unique litigation,” said Kenneth R. Feinberg, the court-appointed mediator for the settlement talks.

Even as they announced the settlement, Bayer officials continued to deny Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicides cause cancer.

“The extensive body of science indicates that Roundup does not cause cancer, and therefore, is not responsible for the illnesses alleged in this litigation,” Bayer CEO Werner Baumann said in a statement.

Dicamba Deal

Bayer also announced a mass tort agreement to settle U.S. dicamba drift litigation, which involves claims from farmers that use of dicamba herbicides developed by Monsanto and BASF to be sprayed over dicamba-tolerant crops developed by Monsanto caused widespread crop loss and injury.

In a trial earlier this year, Monsanto was ordered to pay $265 million to a Missouri peach farmer for dicamba drift damage to his orchard.

More than 100 other farmers have made similar legal claims. Bayer said it will pay up to a total of $400 million to resolve the multi-district dicamba litigation that is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, with claims for the 2015-2020 crop years. Claimants will be required to provide proof of damage to crop yields and evidence that it was due to dicamba in order to collect. The company expects a contribution from its co-defendant, BASF, towards this settlement.

The settlement will provide “much-needed resources for farmers” who have suffered crop losses due to drifting dicamba herbicides, said lawyer Joseph Peiffer of the Peiffer Wolf law firm, which represents farmers with dicamba claims.

“The settlement announced today is an important step to making things right for the farmers who just want to be able to put food on the table of America and the world,” Peiffer said.

Earlier this month a federal court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency had violated the law when it approved dicamba herbicides made by Monsanto, BASF and Corteva Agriscience. The court found the EPA ignored the risks of dicamba damage.

PCB Pollution Settlement 

Bayer also announced a series of agreements that resolve cases the company said represent most of its  exposure to litigation involving water contamination by PCBs, which Monsanto manufactured until  1977. One agreement establishes a class that includes all local governments with EPA permits involving water discharges impaired by PCBs. Bayer said it will pay a total of approximately $650 million to the class, which will be subject to court approval.

Additionally, Bayer said it has entered into separate agreements with the Attorneys-General of New Mexico, Washington, and the District of Columbia to resolve PCB claims. For these agreements, which are separate from the class, Bayer will make payments totally approximately $170 million.

Bayer said the potential cash outflow will not exceed $5 billion in 2020 and $5 billion in 2021 with the remaining balance to be paid in 2022 or later.

Roundup cancer plaintiffs eagerly await settlement news

Print Email Share Tweet
Posted on by Carey Gillam

Thousands of cancer patients and their families around the United States were notified this week that a comprehensive settlement of their claims against the former Monsanto Co. should be announced before the end of the month.

Though specific settlement amounts for specific plaintiffs are still to be determined, groups of plaintiffs have been told to expect details of a sweeping financial deal to be publicly announced before a June 30 deadline set for completing the year-long negotiations. All allege they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup. They additionally allege that the company knew of scientific evidence showing cancer risks associated with its products, but worked to suppress the information to protect its profits.

Lawyers for Monsanto owner Bayer AG and lawyers representing more than 50,000 of the plaintiffs have been engaged in contentious, start-and-stop discussions about a settlement for several months, frustrating families who are struggling financially and emotionally with the strains of fighting cancer.

Many plaintiffs have lost jobs and homes as they deal with costly cancer treatments and some have died while waiting for their cases to be resolved, court records show. Notification of the death of one such plaintiff was made to the federal court in San Francisco on June 1.

Many of the lead law firms with large caseloads have agreed to the terms of a deal that calls for $8 billion-$10 billion to be paid by Bayer in exchange for an agreement that those firms will not file new cancer claims against the company, according to sources close to the litigation.

The amount of money each plaintiff gets will depend upon several factors. The settlements are expected to be structured so they will be tax-free for the plaintiffs.

Some law firms with Roundup plaintiffs have yet to finalize a deal, and settlement meetings were still being held last week, including with the Louisiana-based firm of Pendley, Baudin & Coffin, according to sources close to the litigation.

Bayer spokesman Chris Loder would not confirm the timing or terms of any announcement, saying only that the company had made progress in the negotiations but would “not speculate about settlement outcomes or timing.”

He said any resolution has to be “financially reasonable” and provide “a process to resolve potential future litigation.”

Bayer, which bought Monsanto in June of 2018, has been seeking to put an end to the mass litigation that has driven down the company’s stock, spurred investor unrest, and thrust questionable corporate conduct into a public spotlight.  The first three trials led to three losses for Monsanto and jury awards of more than $2 billion, though trial judges later sharply reduced the awards. Monsanto appealed each of the three losses and is now awaiting an appellate ruling on the first case – Johnson v. Monsanto – after a June 2 oral argument. 

Despite the settlement talks, court proceedings have been continuing on multiple cases. A flurry of lawsuits were recently transferred from state courts into the federal multidistrict Roundup litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco. And lawyers for Bayer have been busily filing their answers to the lawsuits.

In the city of St. Louis, Mo., Monsanto’s longtime home-town, the case of Timothy Kane v. Monsanto has a status hearing set for June 15 and a jury trial set to start June 29.  And though it appears very unlikely the case will proceed, on Wednesday lawyers for the chemical giant filed a motion seeking to exclude testimony of one of the witnesses for the plaintiffs.

.

EPA thumbs nose at court order, says farmers can still use illegal dicamba herbicides

Print Email Share Tweet
Posted on by Carey Gillam

(UPDATES with comment from BASF)

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday declared it would not immediately honor a court ruling handed down last week that banned certain herbicides made by three of the world’s largest chemical companies.

The move by the EPA amounts to a generous gift to BASF, Bayer and Corteva Agrisciences whose dicamba herbicides were deemed by the court to have been approved by the EPA illegally. The court specifically said in its order issued last week that it wanted no delay in vacating those approvals. The court cited damage done by dicamba use in past summers to millions of acres of crops, orchards and vegetable plots across U.S. farm country.

But the EPA announced Monday that it was issuing a “cancellation order” that would give farmers until July 31 to use existing stocks of Bayer’s Xtendimax, BASF’s Engenia, and Corteva’s FeXapan.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the EPA made multiple errors in approving the dicamba products and came in response to a petition brought by the National Family Farm Coalition, Center for Food Safety, Center for Biological Diversity, and Pesticide Action Network North America.

The Center for Food Safety (CFS), whose lawyers argued the case for petitioners, said in a statement that the EPA’s action was “disingenuous” and “ignores the well-documented and overwhelming evidence of substantial drift harm to farmers from another disastrous spraying season.” The EPA action also ignores the risks dicamba poses to hundreds of endangered species, CFS said.

“The Trump administration is again showing it has no regard for the rule of law. All users that continue to not seek alternatives should be on notice that they are using a harmful, defective, and unlawful product. We will bring the EPA’s failure to abide by the Court’s order to the Court as expeditiously as possible,” CFS said.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue last week urged the EPA to figure out a way around the court ruling, echoing comments by Bayer, BASF and Corteva that called dicamba herbicides important “tools” for farmers growing genetically engineered soybean and cotton.

The EPA said in deciding to allow farmers to continue to use dicamba through the end of July it was responding to “numerous unsolicited phone calls and emails” telling the agency “there is a real concern and potential for devastation to cotton and soybean crops that could result in a crisis for the industry.”

The EPA did not acknowledge the scores of farmers growing crops other than dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton who have suffered crop losses from dicamba drift and fear another summer of crop damage.

Farmers have been using dicamba herbicides for more than 50 years but traditionally avoided applying the herbicide during hot summer months, and rarely if ever over large swaths of land due to the well-known propensity of the chemical to drift far from intended target areas where it could damage crops, gardens, orchards, and shrubs.

Monsanto, which was bought by Bayer in 2018, upended that restraint when it launched dicamba-tolerant soybean and cotton seeds a few years ago, encouraging farmers to spray new formulations of dicamba “over the top” of these genetically engineered crops during warm-weather growing months.

Monsanto’s move to create the dicamba-tolerant crops came after its glyphosate-tolerant crops and widespread spraying of glyphosate created an epidemic of weed resistance across U.S. farmland.

Farmers, agricultural scientists and other experts warned Monsanto and the EPA that introducing a dicamba-tolerant system would not only create more herbicide resistance but would lead to devastating damage to crops that are not genetically engineered to tolerate dicamba.

The companies claimed their new versions of dicamba would not volatize and drift as older versions of dicamba weed killing products were known to do. But those assurances were proven false amid widespread complaints of dicamba drift damage in recent years. More than one million acres of dicamba crop damage was reported last year in 18 states, the court noted.

In February, a unanimous jury awarded a Missouri peach farmer $15 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages to be paid by Bayer and BASF for dicamba damage to his property.

In a statement issued after the EPA announcement, BASF  said it supported the EPA’s decision to allow the continued use of existing stocks of BASF’s Engenia herbicide through July 31, but said “additional clarity and flexibility” was required.  The company said it had immediately suspended selling and shipping Engenia herbicide after last week’s ruling. 

The company said it  will continue to pursue re-registration of Engenia with the EPA and is assessing its options to pursue legal remedies to challenge the court order.

Dicamba: Farmers fear another season of crop damage; court ruling awaited

Print Email Share Tweet
Posted on by Carey Gillam

With the turn of the calendar to June, farmers in the U.S. Midwest are wrapping up the planting of new soybean crops and tending to growing fields of young corn plants and vegetable plots. But many are also bracing to be hit by an invisible enemy that has wreaked havoc in farm country the last few summers – the chemical weed killer dicamba.

Jack Geiger, a certified organic farmer in Robinson, Kansas, describes the last few summer growing seasons as characterized by “chaos,” and said he partially lost certification for one field of organic crops due to contamination with dicamba sprayed from afar. Now he is pleading with neighbors who spray the weed killer on their fields to make sure the chemical stays off his property.

“There is dicamba everywhere,” Geiger said.

Geiger is only one of hundreds of farmers around the U.S. Midwest and several southern states who have reported crop damages and losses they claim were caused by drifting dicamba over the last few years.

Farmers have been using dicamba herbicides for more than 50 years but traditionally avoided applying the herbicide during hot summer months, and rarely if ever over large swaths of land due to the well-known propensity of the chemical to drift far from intended target areas.

That restraint was reversed after Monsanto launched dicamba-tolerant soybean and cotton seeds to encourage farmers to spray new formulations of dicamba “over the top” of these genetically engineered crops. Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer AG, along with BASF and Corteva AgriScience all gained approval from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to market new formulations of dicamba herbicides for spraying over the tops of growing dicamba-tolerant crops. The companies claimed their new versions of dicamba would not volatize and drift as older versions of dicamba weed killing products were known to do.

But those assurances have proven false amid widespread complaints of dicamba drift damage since the introduction of the new dicamba-tolerant crops and the new dicamba herbicides.

A consortium of farmer and consumer groups sued the EPA over its backing of the over-the-top use of the dicamba herbicides and is now awaiting a ruling by the ninth circuit court of appeals in San Francisco regarding their demand that the court overturn the EPA’s approval of the three company’s herbicides. Oral arguments were held in April.

The consumer and environmental groups allege the EPA broke the law by failing to analyze the “significant socioeconomic and agronomic costs to farmers” leading to “catastrophic” levels of crop damage.

The groups say the EPA seems more interested in protecting the business interests of Monsanto and the other companies than in protecting farmers.

Lawyers for Monsanto, representing the company as a unit of Bayer, said the plaintiffs have no credible argument. The company’s new dicamba herbicide, called XtendiMax, “has assisted growers in addressing a significant nationwide weed resistance problem, and soybean and cotton yields have hit record highs nationwide during this litigation,” according to a brief filed by the company’s lawyers on May 29.

“Petitioners’ request for an order immediately halting all sales and uses of the pesticide invites legal error and potentially disastrous real-world impacts,” the company said.

As they await the federal court’s decision, farmers are hoping that new restrictions put in place by some states will protect them. The Illinois Department of Agriculture has advised applicators that they can’t spray after June 20, that they should not spray dicamba products if the temperature is over 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and that they should only apply dicamba when the wind is blowing away from “sensitive” areas. Minnesota, Indiana, North Dakota and South Dakota are among other states putting in place cut-off dates for spraying dicamba.

Steve Smith, director of agriculture at Red Gold Inc, the world’s largest canned tomato processor, said even with the state restrictions he is “extremely concerned” about the upcoming season. More acres of being planting with the dicamba-tolerant soybeans developed by Monsanto so it is likely there will be more dicamba being sprayed, he said.

“We’ve worked hard to keep the message out there of not to get close to us, but someone, sometime, is going to make a mistake that could seriously cost us our business,”  he said.

Smith said he is hopeful the court will overturn the EPA approval and “stop this insanity of a system.”

Separately from the potential dicamba damage to crops, new research was recently published showing that farmers exposed to high levels of dicamba appear to have elevated risks of liver and other types of cancer.  Researchers said the new data showed that an association previously seen in the data between dicamba and lung and colon cancers was “no longer apparent” with the updated data.

Fresh talk of a settlement between Bayer and Roundup cancer patients

Print Email Share Tweet
Posted on by Carey Gillam

There was renewed talk of a potential settlement this week between Bayer AG and tens of thousands of cancer patients as a key court hearing looms next week.

According to a report in Bloomberg, lawyers for Bayer have reached verbal agreements with U.S. lawyers representing at least 50,000 plaintiffs who are suing Monsanto over claims that Roundup and other Monsanto herbicides caused the plaintiffs to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The details as reported by Bloomberg appear to be mostly unchanged from prior verbal agreements between Bayer and plaintiffs’ attorneys that fell apart during the Coronavirus-related courthouse closings. With the courthouses still closed, trial dates have been postponed, taking the pressure off Bayer.

But a new pressure point looms with next week’s hearing in the appeal of the first Roundup cancer trial. The California Court of Appeal First Appellate District is set to hear oral arguments on cross-appeals in the case of Johnson v Monsanto  on June 2.

That case, which pitted California groundskeeper Dewayne “Lee” Johnson against Monsanto, resulted in a $289 million damage award for Johnson in August 2018. The jury found not only that Monsanto’s Roundup and related glyphosate-based brands presented a substantial danger to people using them, but that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Monsanto’s officials acted with “malice or oppression” in failing to adequately warn of the risks.

The trial judge in the Johnson case later lowered the damages to $78.5 million. Monsanto appealed even the reduced award, and Johnson cross-appealed seeking reinstatement of the full jury award.

In appealing the verdict, Monsanto asked the court to either reverse the trial decision and enter a judgment for Monsanto or reverse and remand the case for a new trial. At the very least, Monsanto asked the appeals court to reduce the portion of the jury award for “future noneconomic damages” from $33 million to $1.5 million and to wipe out the punitive damages altogether.

The appeals court judges gave an early hint about how they were leaning on the case, notifying lawyers for the two sides that they should be prepared to discuss the question of damages in the June 2 hearing. Plaintiffs’ attorneys have taken that as an encouraging sign that the judges may not be planning to order a new trial.

Under the terms of the settlement that has been discussed for the last several months, Bayer would pay out a total of $10 billion to bring closure to cases held by several large firms, but would not agree to put warning labels on its glyphosate-based weed killers, as had been demanded by some of the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

The settlement would not cover all of the plaintiffs with pending claims. Nor would it cover Johnson or the other three plaintiffs who already won their claims at trial. Monsanto and Bayer have appealed all the trial losses.

Lawyers at the major firms involved in the litigation declined to discuss the current situation.

Bayer officials have denied there is any scientific evidence linking glyphosate herbicides to cancer, but investors have been pushing for a settlement to resolve the litigation. It would be beneficial to Bayer to settle the cases before any adverse ruling by the appellate court, which could further rattle the company’s shareholders. Bayer bought Monsanto in June of 2018. Following the Johnson trial loss in August 2018, the company’s share price plummeted and has remained under pressure.

Frustrated Plaintiffs

The first lawsuits in the Roundup cancer litigation were filed in late 2015, meaning many plaintiffs have been waiting years for resolution. Some plaintiffs have died while they waited, with their cases now being carried forward by family members frustrated at the lack of progress in bringing cases to a close.

Some plaintiffs have been making video messages directed at Bayer executives, calling for them to agree to settlements and to make changes to warn consumers about potential cancer risks of glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup.

Vincent Tricomi, 68, is one such plaintiff. In the video he made, which he shared with US Right to Know, he said he has undergone 12 rounds of chemotherapy and five hospital stays fighting his cancer. After achieving a temporary remission, the cancer recurred earlier this year, he said.

“There are so many like me who are suffering and need relief,” said Tricomi.  Watch his video message below: