Tuesday was a big news day for the growing legal movement to hold Monsanto accountable for selling a widely-used weed killer that plaintiffs say gave them or their loved ones cancer.
Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson is dying of cancer. He looks on after hearing the verdict to his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court Of California in San Francisco, California, on August 10, 2018, before the award was reduced to $78 million. Josh Edelson / POOL / AFP / Getty Images
A California groundskeeper who won a landmark cancer trial against Roundup-maker Monsanto has agreed to accept $78 million, a significant reduction from the jury's original award of $289 million, the Associated Press reported.
A new trial would have taken place if plaintiff DeWayne "Lee" Johnson did not accept the lessened damages ordered by Judge Suzanne Bolanos of San Francisco's Superior Court of California last week.
Dewayne Johnson reacts after the verdict to his case at the Superior Court Of California in San Francisco on Aug. 10. JOSH EDELSON / AFP / Getty Images
A San Francisco judge made a surprise ruling Monday and upheld a jury's verdict that Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller gave a California groundskeeper cancer, and that the company failed to warn him of the danger, CNN reported.
Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos had issued a tentative ruling Oct. 10 ordering a new trial over the punitive damages awarded to plaintiff Dewayne "Lee" Johnson, saying he had failed to prove that Monsanto acted with "malice or oppression." After reviewing arguments from both sides, however, Bolanos instead upheld the verdict, but lowered the punitive damages from $250 million to $39 million. A new trial will only take place if Johnson's lawyers don't accept the reduced award.
A California judge opened the door Wednesday to a do-over of the landmark trial that awarded California groundskeeper DeWayne Johnson $289 million in damages from agri-chemical giant Monsanto after he claimed constant use of the company's Roundup weed-killer caused his cancer.
A scientific journal
issued a rare "Expression of Concern" and requested corrections from authors involved in a group of papers that determined Monsanto's controversial herbicide glyphosate is safe, Bloomberg reported.
The editor-in-chief and publisher of
Critical Reviews in Toxicology said Wednesday that the five articles, which were published in the journal's 2016 supplemental issue, failed to adequately disclose ties to the agribusiness giant.
Another study has cast doubt on the environmental safety of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the most frequently used weedkiller in the world.
A jury's verdict in California that a groundskeeper got cancer from repeated exposure to Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller is offering new hope for justice for millions of plaintiffs an ocean away.
Monsanto's—and now Bayer's—glyphosate problem is also a headache for General Mills. The Cheerios-maker could face a class action lawsuit alleging the company failed to warn consumers about traces of the controversial herbicide in its products.
