Bayer loses appeal of ruling that its weed killer causes cancer:
Bayer AG's Roundup woes deepened as it lost another appeal of a jury verdict finding its weed killer causes cancer, the company's third consecutive appeals court loss of the cases that have gone to trial.
A California appeals court in San Francisco refused to overturn the 2019 verdict in which a jury awarded more than $2 billion to a couple who claimed they fell ill after using the herbicide for more than three decades. It was the eighth-largest product-defect award in U.S. history. The appeals court left intact the trial judge's decision to reduce the award to $86.7 million.
The decision comes after Leverkusen, Germany-based Bayer recently set aside an additional $4.5 billion to deal with thousands of Roundup suits, bringing its reserves for the cases to more than $16 billion. The company also said its Monsanto unit will pull the current version of Roundup off the U.S. consumer lawn and garden market in 2023.
The drugs and chemicals giant inherited the legal storm over Roundup with its $63 billion takeover of St. Louis-based Monsanto in 2018, a deal spearheaded by Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann early in his tenure. Monsanto started manufacturing Roundup in the 1970s.
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Justice Michael Lee handed down his judgement in the class action against widely-used herbicide Roundup on Thursday afternoon.
The case, launched by Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, claims Roundup's active ingredient glyphosate caused the cancer of more than 800 Australian non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients.
Justice Lee ruled there is not enough current evidence to say glyphosate is carcinogenic and capable of causing non-Hodgkin lymphoma in humans.
The judge only needed to consider the question of general causation – not the specific claims of lead applicant Kelvin McNickle or the other class action group members.
Justice Lee ordered the proceedings be dismissed.
Bayer, which acquired Roundup's producer Monsanto in 2018, has previously stated glyphosate-based herbicides have been rigorously tested in hundreds of studies and it is safe when used as directed.
Related:
•Study First to Link Weed Killer Roundup to Convulsions in Animals
•US Supreme Court Rejects Bayer's Bid to End Roundup Lawsuits
•Bayer Loses Appeal of Ruling That its Weed Killer Causes Cancer
•Widely Used Herbicide Linked to Preterm Births
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @04:47AM (13 children)
Monsanto was making Roundup-like herbicides at least as early as 1961, and probably earlier.
https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/agent-orange-1 [history.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @05:01AM (1 child)
Damn. It's so nasty being exposed to people exposed to it is unhealthy!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @05:42AM
It could be the birth defects part of the damage.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @09:11AM
Roundup is not dioxin based. It uses glysophate, which is not thought to be the cancer causing agent, rather what they mix in for the surfacant.
(Score: 3, Informative) by inertnet on Wednesday August 11 2021, @01:48PM
Really off topic here, more on dioxin (Seveso disaster) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @02:53PM (7 children)
How the hell did this bullshit, completely ignorant and false post get modded Informative? Soylent is modded by idiots. Jesus, this site is just as much of a stooge show as the worst of them.
(Score: 4, Touché) by http on Wednesday August 11 2021, @03:02PM
You're free to log in and mod misleading information as Troll. Even as Disagree, if it's more of a philisophical dispute than error.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 11 2021, @04:08PM (5 children)
Which part is false?
That dioxin is a harmful carcinogen? Or that glyophospate, also a carcinogen, is similar?
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 11 2021, @04:17PM (4 children)
Actually, according to the EPA, glyophosphate is not a carcinogen. [epa.gov]
If you had posted that instead of whining about moderation you would've added something to the discussion instead of subtracted.
So that raises the question: how do you get convicted of being a carcinogen when the EPA says you're not a carcinogen?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @05:41PM
It's all the other stuff they include in the mix. More specifically, the chemicals they use for the surfacant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @08:22PM (1 child)
I didn't subtract from it. I prompted you to look it up (probably in an attempt to refute me), and you posted some info. It's not my job to spoonfeed you when something is so completely, "Troll" wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @08:53PM
You only get to tell someone to research when your claim of falsity is clear. You are the same super troll AC getting spam modded so you are probably just shilling some more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @11:55PM
> how do you get convicted of being a carcinogen when the EPA says you're not a carcinogen?
New data. Or, this sort of corruption might have played a role:
https://theintercept.com/2021/08/04/intercepted-podcast-epa-chemicals-whistleblowers/ [theintercept.com]
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday August 11 2021, @07:17PM
When you say Roundup-like, do you mean with glyphosate?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @06:07AM (1 child)
That's what you get for buying out Monsanto, dumb krauts.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @06:38AM
Once it's a foreign company that owns it, it's open season.
Dumb krauts indeed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 11 2021, @06:29AM (18 children)
First, experts can be biased or bribed. So leaving all technical judgements in the hands of experts can be problematic.
With that said, the US practice of using juries to decide cases like this is arguably worse. The average jury member is going to have no medical, biological or chemical training. In fact, those with actual expertise are generally rejected during the selection process. Which means that those remaining will be persuaded by the side that bring the best lawyer-actors and the most tearful witnesses. Then you get to the awards: "a jury awarded more than $2 billion to a couple who claimed they fell ill". That's just insane.
tl;dr: There's no "justice" in sight in court cases like this. The US justice system is utterly broken.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @06:41AM (5 children)
Not at all. The defense has the right to call their own experts.
Doesn't Switzerland still have juries?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 11 2021, @07:18AM (3 children)
Sure, Switzerland has juries, but cases like this are more likely to be in front of a judge.
The point isn't being able to call experts. The problem is: a jury composed of random people off the street has no way to evaluate the testimony of such experts. This is the kind of case best left to judges and their staff, who have time to work their way into the material and to consult independent experts. In the US, (afaik) the side that would expect to lose in front of a judge can insist on a jury trial, and hope that crying witnesses can sway the jury into an emotional judgement.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @08:47AM (2 children)
Like judges are any more informed/competent on tech matters than the regular joe schmo.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday August 11 2021, @01:37PM (1 child)
It's like saying the average kid off the street is less competent with computers than an aging judge. Yeah, I don't believe that. The kids nowadays have lived and breathed technology since they were in diapers. Rando old guy/gal on the bench, was using a typewriter to write their dissertation.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @03:05PM
Old guy's been spotting fallacies since before said kids' parents were born.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @03:30PM
So has the Judge.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @08:35AM (2 children)
Well, it's supposed to be a jury of peers. So when a corporation is on trial with a history of chemical warfare products, the jury should be composed of companies like AG Farben (Bayer), Dow/DuPont or perhaps Union Carbide or Exxon.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Wednesday August 11 2021, @01:12PM (1 child)
Modded you funny, but was looking for 'scary'.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 12 2021, @05:17AM
Who needs Skynet? Our so-called "human," ehem, "cousins(?)" doing a damn good job.
We don't need no freaking AI robots, we will destroy ourselves fine, thank you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Wednesday August 11 2021, @10:22AM (5 children)
Iudex non calculat. What you describe is valid for judges as well as for juries.
But of course, knowing that, and with the US justice system in its state, AND with pending lawsuits against Monsanto, paying a high-2-figure billion sum for that company is so unbelievably stupid that malicious intent has to be assumed as a possibility.
Still, things like this are somehow not unexpected. On a wider scale, the strategic mismanagement of the German chemical industry since the re-unification is immense, although so far the benefactors were the French (e.g. Hoechst AG split up with core assets going to Sanofi, East German petro-chemical industry to Elf).
(Score: 2) by Rich on Wednesday August 11 2021, @11:27AM
Oops. Wrong word. benefactors -> profiteers
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @03:01PM (2 children)
The 2 billion sum isn't for hardship caused to the defendants. Or compensation for grief or difficulties caused. It has nothing to do with what happened to the couple suing them.
It's a penalty to force the company to take it seriously and change their behavior. IDK, maybe most of it should be allocated to some "survivors" fund or something and distributed equally to be really fair. But we all know layers would eat that for lunch and no one would get anything.
The bottom line is Bayer (Monsanto) has deep pockets, because they've profited off this chemical. Deep enough that even 2 billion is just the "cost of doing business" and won't affect their operations. Like good long term planners they've already set aside an even big sum of money to prepare for this. That alone should tell you they already know it's an unsafe product.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 12 2021, @06:04AM
I have benefited from poisoning your kind. Pray I do not benefit further.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Thursday August 12 2021, @08:41AM
I did not consider the penalty to be stupid, but Bayer paying that amount for Monsanto in the first place.
But the penalty is part of a broken legal system. It should be fair enough to pay a maximum of, say, a million, for injuries or death (airlines are capped at what?! iirc it used to be $30K for that). A fine for corporate misbehaviour is fine, too, even at a good percentage of market cap, but that should be a separate process.
Anyway, Monsanto had so many corpses piled up in their attic, from Agent Orange to those pending civil damage claims, with completely lost good-will over the GMO food issues, that Bayer should have never, ever bought them. When looking at German corporations going to the US, Telekom taking over Voicestream was bad enough, and Voicestream didn't have any of such liabilities.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 11 2021, @11:15PM
Bayer isn't out of the game. Court cases are another expense and there's enough money on the line to justify a lot of this circus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @07:03PM
The jury awarded punitive damages, because they found that "Monsanto acted with willful disregard for the safety of others." Punitive damages are not intended to compensate the victim. They are intended to make the perpetrator stop, by putting them out of business if necessary.
I have no sympathy at all for companies acting with willful disregard for the safety of others. If Monsanto knowingly sold unsafe product to millions of people over the course of decades, covering it up the whole time, they should be put out of business, and all of their assets shared amongst their victims.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday August 11 2021, @07:04PM
There have been a few attempts to improve things, with rules of procedure requiring scientific evidence to have some science behind it.
A lawyer I knew once liked the idea of not relying so much on an adversarial system. If memory serves his idea was to have judges more able to fact-find.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 11 2021, @08:24PM
Heh. Don't forget instructions to the jury. Especially in criminal cases, juries have convicted or not convicted based on faulty instructions to the jury. The one thing that lawyers and judges DO NOT WANT, is jury nullification. Jurists can be rejected from selection based on their familiarity with jury nullification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification [wikipedia.org]
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