ABC news reports on a Georgia jury verdict against Monsanto, awarding $65 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages to a man who claims that exposure to the weedkiller Roundup caused his cancer.
By my count, this is at least the third time that a jury has awarded $2 billion in a Roundup lawsuit. See prior reports here and here. Those awards were both reduced by the trial judge, although the reduced awards were still enormous: $87 million and and $400 million.
There have also been a number of defense verdicts, but those don’t typically generate front-page headlines. Bayer, which acquired Monsanto, maintains a website that includes a list of all the trial results going in both directions.
This is an aspect of our legal system that’s hard to explain or justify. If you bring a lawsuit alleging that you developed cancer after using Roundup, and you present the same type of scientific and medical evidence that other plaintiffs have presented, you might get a jury award for billions of dollars or you might get absolutely nothing.
