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A San Francisco federal jury awarded more than $ 80 million to a 70-year-old Californian after determining last week that Monsanto's widely used weed-killer Roundup exposure had been instrumental in the development of its Cancer.
The verdict announced Wednesday puts an end to the second and final phase of the trial in the Edwin Hardeman case against Monsanto, the widely used herbicide manufacturer.
The jurors again ruled in favor of Hardeman, saying that Monsanto, bought last year by Bayer AG for $ 63 billion, had caused harm to the Sonoma County man by not warning of adequately the potential hazards of using glyphosate-based weed killer.
Hardeman received $ 75 million in punitive damages and approximately $ 5.8 million in compensatory damages.
"As demonstrated throughout the trial, since the creation of Roundup more than 40 years ago, Monsanto has refused to act responsibly," Hardeman's lawyers Aimee Wagstaff and Jennifer Moore said in a statement. joint declaration. "Today, the jury held the court to hold Monsanto accountable for its 40 years of corporate misconduct and sent Monsanto the message that it needed to change the way it does business." . "
A diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was diagnosed in Hardeman in February 2015 after using Roundup to kill the poisoned oak and other invasive plants on his 26-hectare property for more than two decades.
The lawsuit alleged that Hardeman's long-term exposure to Roundup had caused his cancer and that Monsanto knew or ought to have known the risks and had not adequately warned of the damages associated with the use. of the product.
The prosecution of Hardeman is the main case of a multi-person litigation involving more than 1,600 plaintiffs in the Northern California District Federal Court and the second case alleging that Monsanto's glyphosate products cause cancer and have been the subject of a lawsuit.
In August 2018, a California state court jury awarded nearly $ 290 million in damages to a man with terminal cancer who was working as a school gardener . The verdict was later reduced to $ 78.5 million and is on appeal.
Bayer announced Wednesday that it would also appeal the verdict in the Hardeman case. The German pharmaceutical company continued to argue that the herbicide was safe.
"We are disappointed with the jury's decision, but this verdict does not change the weight of more than four decades of extensive science and the conclusions of regulators around the world who support the safety of our glyphosate herbicides and the that they are not carcinogenic, "Bayer said. in a report. "We have great sympathy for Mr. Hardeman and his family, Bayer stands behind these products and will defend them vigorously."
Together, the two federal and state level verdicts set a powerful precedent for thousands of other cases pending before the courts. In January, Monsanto was sued by more than 11,000 plaintiffs who said they had been exposed to glyphosate products, which caused them harm, according to Bayer.
In 2015, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans, but the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that Herbicide would probably not be carcinogenic to humans.
Glyphosate products are not banned in the United States; however, a number of cities and jurisdictions in the country have taken steps to ban or restrict the use of the herbicide and, in 2017, California issued a warning regarding the chemical, which is the reason why it was used. adding to the list of substances known to cause cancer.
This is a story in development. Check back for updates and follow BuzzFeed News on Twitter.
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