courts

June 2, 2023

On eve of bellwether PFAS trial, chemical giants DuPont, 3M eye billion-dollar settlements

By Carey Gillam and Shannon Kelleher

Just days before the start of a bellwether trial in South Carolina over PFAS contamination of drinking water, DuPont and two related companies said they would pay close to $1.2 billion to settle liability claims brought by public water systems serving the vast majority of the US population.

PFAS maker 3M was reportedly also considering a settlement that would keep the company from having to face allegations that it was responsible for knowingly contaminating drinking water supplies around the United States.

The trial set to start Monday is expected to spotlight long-held secret documents about the chemical giant 3M’s knowledge about the dangers of its per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and how it worked with DuPont to conceal risks of PFAS from the public.

DuPont and its related companies were recently severed from the case as they negotiated the settlement in which DuPont will pay roughly $400 million; Chemours, a DuPont spinoff, will pay $592 million; and another DuPont-related company, Corteva, will pay about $193 million.

The companies said the settlement excludes personal injury claims due to alleged exposure to PFAS, as well as claims by state Attorneys General about PFAS contamination of natural resources.

Bloomberg reported Friday that 3M was negotiating a $10 billion payout that would resolve claims and avoid Monday’s trial.

Regarding the potential settlement, 3M said in an email to The New Lede “we don’t comment on rumors or speculation.” In a court filing 3M said that it was not liable and that it “never owned, operated, or otherwise controlled the facilities, disposal sites, and other purported sources of PFAS or related compounds.” The company lacked the “necessary controls over its products after the point of sale,” it said in the filing.

The company said in a statement that it is working to stop the use of PFAS across its product portfolio by the end of 2025, even though “PFAS are safely made and used in many modern products.“

May 25, 2023

Bayer investors granted class-action status in lawsuit over Monsanto deal

A federal judge has given the green light for a class-action lawsuit to proceed against Bayer AG brought by investors unhappy with the company’s $63 billion purchase of Monsanto Co. in 2018.

The suit, brought by three pension funds, alleges that Bayer AG misled investors over the risks of the acquisition and failed to properly perform due diligence before buying Monsanto, which at that time was the world’s largest seed company and the maker of the popular, but controversial, Roundup weedkiller.

Just weeks after closing the deal, Bayer shares plunged when Monsanto lost a bellwether trial brought by a California groundskeeper who alleged he developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma due to his exposure to Monsanto’s weed killer. The loss triggered a flood of additional litigation and ultimately led Bayer to agree in 2020 to pay roughly $11 billion to try to settle similar claims brought by more than 100,000 plaintiffs.

Bayer’s purchase of Monsanto was dubbed one of the “worst corporate deals” in recent history by the Wall Street Journal.

“These declines in the value of Bayer … caused Lead Plaintiffs and other Class members to suffer significant loss and damages,” wrote the plaintiffs’ law firm, Cohen Milstein, in a statement. ”

The lead plaintiffs in the action are the Sheet Metal Workers’ National Pension Fund and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local No. 710 Pension Fund, along with an additional plaintiff – the International Union of Operating Engineers Pension Fund of Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware.

March 16, 2023

Monsanto accused of wrongly excluding non-US citizen from Roundup settlement

By Huanjia Zhang

(This story was originally published in Environmental Health News and is republished here with permission.)

Monsanto Co. and its corporate parent Bayer are facing a federal lawsuit for civil rights violations after they allegedly excluded a farmworker from a Roundup cancer settlement because of her immigration status.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia, plaintiff Elvira Reyes-Hernandez is a migrant farmworker who worked on Virginia tree farms between 2015 and 2018, during which she sprayed the herbicide Roundup regularly.

In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) listed glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Over the years, a wide body of scientific evidence has also pointed to glyphosate exposure as causing an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Reyes-Hernandez was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2019 and subsequently sued Monsanto, claiming that Roundup exposure had a role in causing her cancer.

“Monsanto is very likely making calculated risks based on the characteristics of the people who are using their products,” said Katy Youker, an attorney for Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a co-counsel for the case.

By excluding non-US citizens from the settlement program, she said, Monsanto is effectively putting up a huge barrier for migrant farmworkers — most of whom do not have citizenship but are at the forefront of Roundup exposure — from seeking restitution.

This case could send an encouraging message to migrant and undocumented farmworkers who wish to bring legal action against the company. However, legal experts and farmworker advocates are still pessimistic about the prospect of them coming forward, especially when facing a myriad of hurdles and obstacles.

October 27, 2022

Amid calls for ban on weed killer linked to Parkinson’s, a battle over science

By Carey Gillam

When US regulators issued a 2019 assessment of the widely used farm chemical paraquat, they determined that even though multiple scientific studies linked the chemical to Parkinson’s disease, that work was outweighed by other studies that did not find such links. Overall, the weight of scientific evidence was “insufficient” to prove paraquat causes the brain disease, officials with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared.

The EPA reiterated its assessment in a 2021 report. The agency said after extensive analysis of numerous factors, including concerns about Parkinson’s risk, it determined farmers could safely continue to apply the weed killer across millions of US acres to help in the production of soybeans, corn, cotton and an array of other crops.

The determination has been significant for Syngenta, the longtime maker of paraquat weed killers. The company is facing calls in the US for a paraquat ban, as well as more than 2,000 legal claims brought by farmers and others alleging they developed Parkinson’s disease because of their exposure to paraquat.

Syngenta cites the EPA assessment of the science on paraquat in defense of the pesticide, and says scientific research “does not support” a causal relationship between the chemical and the disease. On a Syngenta-run paraquat information website, the company highlights several studies it says also backs that position, including many conducted by company scientists or by outside scientists who received company funding for their work.

Last week the Guardian and The New Lede reported that internal corporate records show Syngenta had knowledge of science linking paraquat to Parkinson’s decades ago but sought both to refute the evidence with various secret tactics. The documents are available at the Paraquat Papers Media Library.

US farmworker, health and environmental advocacy groups say in contrast to the corporate science, research conducted by independent scientists provides abundant evidence of paraquat’s ability to cause Parkinson’s and other health dangers, and the EPA is improperly discounting that body of research.

More than 50 groups have called for the US to follow the lead of dozens of other countries in banning paraquat. The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research submitted a petition to the EPA with 107,000 signatories calling for a ban. The foundation cited a study that found people exposed to paraquat in their teens or as young adults had an increased Parkinson’s risk of 200 to 600 percent, depending on the overall exposure.

October 21, 2022

A human toll- paraquat users blame Syngenta for Parkinson’s disease

By Carey Gillam and Aliya Uteuova

When Illinois farmer Ron Niebruegge was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the age of 55, he was certain it must be a mistake. Niebruegge had always been healthy and active, someone who loved horseback riding and taking his wife dancing on weekend nights.

But a dizzy spell and a fall in 2007 led him to visit a neurologist, and then another. Both doctors agreed that the little things Niebruegge had started to notice – a left arm that didn’t seem to work quite right, some stiffness in his joints – were undeniable signs of the onset of Parkinson’s, a progressive debilitating brain disease for which there is no cure.

Now 70 years old, Niebruegge lives a very different life: The horses he loved have been given away and the horse trailer sold. Dancing is a thing of the past; Niebruegge struggles simply to walk across a room. He uses a cane but falls so frequently and unexpectedly that he fears leaving home.

One recent fall left him with a dislocated shoulder that required surgery. And his wife of 49 years has transitioned from dance partner to caregiver.

Niebruegge is far from alone. More than 8 million people globally suffer from what scientists see as the fastest growing neurological disorder in the world. And while scientists see multiple toxins as potential causes, one pesticide popular with farmers across the US has been prominently linked to the disease: a weed killer called paraquat that has grown in use over recent decades.

The longtime manufacturer of paraquat, Syngenta AG, along with Chevron USA, the successor to a former US paraquat distributor, are now being sued by thousands of Parkinson’s sufferers. The plaintiffs claim scientific studies show that exposure to paraquat can cause, or significantly increase the risk of, Parkinson’s disease, but rather than warn users, the companies prioritized paraquat sales over human health.

September 14, 2022

Court smacks USDA for lack of transparency in GMO labeling

By Carey Gillam

Years of legislative and court battles over the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) food took another turn this week when a federal court determined on Tuesday that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) erred in allowing food companies to label GE products simply with digital codes that consumers have to scan, without any accompanying disclosure options.

Under USDA rules that took full effect earlier this year, food made with genetically modified crops can be labeled simply as “bioengineered” (BE), or come with a QR code guiding consumers to more information online, among other options.

But the court said those rules did not comply with the law, and found that the USDA knew that allowing “standalone electronic disclosure” would not provide consumers “sufficient access” to disclosures about bioengineering involved in creating certain products.

September 2, 2022

Roundup litigation at turning point as Bayer rejects “global resolution plan”

By Carey Gillam

Fresh off a fifth-in-a-row trial victory, Monsanto owner Bayer AG is rejecting a proposed “global resolution plan” put forward by plaintiffs’ lawyers as a last chance to try to settle tens of thousands of pending Roundup cancer claims before a wave of new trials get underway, newly filed court documents show.

The company stance comes at a pivotal point in the ongoing nationwide litigation involving plaintiffs who allege they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) from exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weed killers, such as Roundup.

The group of law firms leading the cases in what is called “multidistrict litigation (MDL)” is asking US District Court Judge Vince Chhabria to approve a plan that would set a 60-day window in which both sides would try to forge a final global settlement that would cover the claims of roughly 30,000 plaintiffs.

If no settlement can be reached, the plaintiffs’ firms want the judge to start the process of dissolving the MDL and clearing waves of cases to go to trial in the states where they originated.

The plaintiffs’ law firms say the current court-approved settlement process, which has been ongoing for two years, is too slow and ties plaintiffs into a mediation process that provides only low-ball settlement offers to plaintiffs while delaying trials.

“The offers made within the settlement program appear to be woefully inadequate. Thus, a substantial number of MDL cases remain unresolved by the settlement program, and it is highly unlikely that these cases will be settled absent global resolution or an imminent trial setting,” the plaintiffs’ firms said in a Sept. 1 court filing.

In opposing the proposal, Monsanto lawyers said the current MDL structure should be maintained and the mediation process kept in place. The company lawyers argued that disbanding the MDL and sending “thousands of current and future cases to district courts throughout this country” would “bring chaos to bear.”

August 26, 2022

For first time, Bayer CEO targeted to give testimony in Roundup litigation

By Carey Gillam

Bayer AG CEO Werner Baumann can be required to provide testimony in ongoing Roundup litigation despite efforts by Bayer to block such action, according to a recent court order.

A judge in Arkansas ruled that lawyers for plaintiffs in the litigation may travel to Germany, where Bayer is based, and take deposition testimony from the executive to be used as evidence. The judge directed Baumann to sit for the questioning within 90 days. The order is a first in the sweeping Roundup litigation, which began in 2015.

Baumann was instrumental in driving Bayer to buy Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion, and he has been the public face for the company’s continued insistence that Monsanto’s Roundup, and other glyphosate-based herbicides, are not carcinogenic.

The plaintiffs lawyers say it is these representations by Baumann and others that open up Bayer to allegations of “fraudulent concealment,” and is part of the reason they want to depose him. The evidence and trials held to date have focused on scientific studies that mostly predate the acquisition, as well as internal Monsanto documents and other records, but have not explored corporate actions by Bayer.

Lawyers for Bayer sought a protective order preventing a deposition of Baumann, and on Thursday asked the judge to reconsider his ruling, saying reconsideration is needed to prevent a “miscarriage of justice.” The company said additionally that if the court will not reconsider, it wants the deposition conducted “in accordance with the Hague Convention.”

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August 23, 2022

Bayer facing long line-up of new Roundup trials as cancer takes toll

Cancer has taken an unrelenting toll on 72-year-old Mike Langford. After being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in 2007 he suffered through five recurrences despite multiple rounds of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. Now he struggles with chemo-related neuropathy in his arms and legs, and new tests show the cancer is back.

Langford blames his cancer on his longtime use of the popular weed-killing product Roundup, which he applied countless times over decades using a backpack sprayer around his five-acre California property and a vacation lake home. He alleges in a lawsuit that Monsanto, the longtime Roundup maker now owned by the German company Bayer AG, should have warned of a cancer risk.

Last month, a San Francisco judge ruled that Langford’s health is so poor that he is entitled to a speedy hearing of his claims. A trial is set for Nov. 7 in San Francisco County Superior Court.

“I’ve had it so long. I’m very angry,” Langford said in an interview, a day after doctors biopsied an enlarged lymph node. “The future doesn’t look too terribly promising,” he said, trying to hold back tears. He learned last week that the preliminary biopsy results show a return of NHL.

August 3, 2022

Roundup trial starts in St. Louis

A St. Louis jury on Wednesday heard opening statements in a new Roundup cancer trial that is the latest in a long line-up of coming courtroom battles over allegations that Monsanto’s popular weed killer causes cancer.

Plaintiffs’ lawyer Gibbs Henderson told jurors that evidence in the case would persuade them that exposure to Roundup caused each of his three clients to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), while Monsanto lawyer Manuel Cachan said he would present evidence that would completely dispute any causal connection.

Henderson said in his opening statement that he expects Monsanto to rely heavily on assessments by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is “not likely” to be carcinogenic. But he said he and other lawyers representing the plaintiffs will show the jury a large body of scientific evidence showing the herbicide does cause cancer and that Monsanto engaged in tactics designed to hide that information from consumers.

Henderson said the plaintiffs’ side will prove Monsanto was negligent and acted in “reckless disregard” for the plaintiffs’ safety with respect to its Roundup products.

“We think the evidence is going to show that reckless disregard,” said Henderson.