Monsanto wins first Roundup court case in recent string of Philadelphia lawsuits

A Philadelphia jury has delivered a unanimous victory to agricultural giant Monsanto, deciding in favor of the company in a case in which a Lansdale man alleged that its popular weed killer Roundup caused his cancer.

The company’s win in the case is its first in a recent string of Roundup lawsuits filed in Philadelphia and its third consecutive trial victory overall in lawsuits that involve the weed killer.

Prior to this verdict, on March 5, the company lost three Roundup cases in Philadelphia dating to October. Those cases ended in favor of the plaintiffs, with damages totaling $175 million, $3.5 million, and $2.25 billion.

Bayer, the German pharmaceutical and biotechnology giant that is Monsanto’s parent company, has vowed to appeal those verdicts.

Plaintiffs who do not live in Philadelphia are able to file lawsuits in Philadelphia courts so long as the defendant conducts business in the city. The city’s Court of Common Pleas is considered to be plaintiff-friendly, which critics say encourages “venue shopping” by attorneys looking to file in courts that are favorable to the person suing.

In this case, plaintiff Carl Kline, 71, alleged that he developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after being exposed to Roundup. Kline, a retired postal worker, claimed to have exposed himself to Roundup, which contains an herbicide known as glyphosate, more than 10 times over multiple years.

Exposure to Roundup, Kline alleged in the lawsuit, “substantially contributed to and caused” his later cancer diagnosis and that Monsanto was negligent and failed to warn consumers of the dangers of the product.

The lawsuit was filed in the Court of Common Pleas Court in 2022 and also named Nouryon, a Radnor-based chemical company that manufacturers another ingredient in Roundup known as a “surfactant” that helps the herbicide effectively kill weeds.

The jury voted unanimously in Monsanto’s favor.

“The plaintiffs could not prove that Roundup was the cause of the injuries alleged in these cases, consistent with this science,” Bayer said in a statement. “While we have great sympathy for anyone who suffers a loss or injury, science proves that Roundup is not carcinogenic.”

Ahead of the trial, Judge Joshua Roberts, who oversees the court’s mass tort program, determined that some evidence presented in previous Roundup trials could not be shown to the jury. One of Kline’s attorneys, Adam Peavy of the Houston-based firm Clark, Love & Hutson, said that not including that evidence contributed to the not-liable verdict.

Peavy said they planned to appeal. “We look forward to our next trial setting where we can discuss with the jury all the evidence.”

Among the pieces of evidence disallowed in court, Peavy, said, was a 2015 finding by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Peavy added that Kline’s legal team was not able to present evidence discussing alleged flaws in an Environmental Protection Agency evaluation of glyphosate and took issue with Monsanto being able to “enter into evidence findings by foreign regulatory agencies disguised as ‘foreign scientists.’ ”

Those factors “collectively tilted the trial in Monsanto’s favor in a manner inconsistent with any other previous Roundup trial to date,” Peavy added.

Bayer, however, said the verdict is “the first to follow significant rulings in the Philadelphia litigation clarifying which scientific and regulatory conclusions could be admitted … a much-disputed issue in prior trials.”

Bayer has won 13 of the last 19 Roundup cases in which judgments were entered at trial, the company said in a statement. Bayer said its next Roundup litigation is scheduled to begin in April.

Monsanto has been sued thousands of times in cases alleging that Roundup caused plaintiffs’ cancers. In 2020, Bayer agreed to pay up to $10.9 billion in settling nearly 100,000 lawsuits involving the weed killer. The company still faces about 50,000 Roundup-related claims, Reuters reports.

“We continue to stand behind the safety of Roundup and will confidently defend the safety of our products and our good faith actions in any future litigation,” the company said.