California Appellate Court Hears Argument in First Major Roundup Loss for Monsanto

In early June of 2020, the California Court of Appeal First Appellate District heard an argument in the Dewayne Johnson v. Monsanto case. In 2018, a California jury awarded Dewayne Johnson, a school groundskeeper, $289 million after finding that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide weed killer was a substantial factor in causing Mr. Johnson’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

The verdict represented the first significant loss for Monsanto, which was purchased by German pharmaceutical giant Bayer in June 2018. Since the Johnson case, two more juries have awarded massive verdicts to plaintiffs whose NHL was caused by exposure to Roundup, including one verdict for over $2 billion.

Monsanto appealed the judgment

After the trial, the trial court judge reduced the verdict amount from $289 million to $78.5 million. Monsanto appealed the judgment, asking the appellate court to throw out the judgment, or in the alternative, significantly reduce the judgment amount. In response, Johnson filed a counterappeal requesting the court to reinstate the full value of the jury’s verdict.

On June 2, 2020, the appellate court heard arguments from both parties. Monsanto’s attorneys argued that the agriculture corporation had no obligation to warn consumers that its herbicide product causes cancer because there was a “worldwide consensus” that the product was safe. At least one justice seemed to reject that claim outright. Monsanto’s attorneys ignored several published peer review articles, as well as the finding from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (part of the World Health Organization) that came to the exact opposite conclusion as the so-called “worldwide consensus.”

Plaintiff lawyers fight to keep the punitive damages against Monsanto

Attorneys for Mr. Johnson argued that Monsanto was using the appeal to relitigate the facts that had been heard and decided on by the California jury two years ago. After hearing the egregious facts of Monsanto’s conduct, the jury found that the conduct warranted the imposition of substantial punitive damages.

As Johnson’s attorneys pointed out, punitive damages must be sufficient to punish the company’s behavior and deter it and other companies from similar conduct in the future. For a billion-dollar company like Monsanto, punitive damages need to be substantial for the company to consider changing its ways.

The appellate court has 90 days to issue a ruling on the appeal. Depending on the decision, either party may appeal to the California Supreme Court. We will continue t2o monitor and update our readers on developments in this and other Roundup-related litigation.