Daily Nation
Saturday August 11 2018
Dewayne Johnson reacts after the verdict was read in the case against
Monsanto at the Superior Court Of California in San Francisco,
California on August 10, 2018. A California jury on Friday, August 10,
2018 ordered agrochemical giant Monsanto to pay nearly $290 million for
failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that its weed killer Roundup might
cause cancer. PHOTO | JOSH EDELSON | AFP
SAN FRANCISCO,
A
California jury ordered chemical giant Monsanto to pay nearly $290
million Friday for failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that its weed
killer Roundup might cause cancer.
Jurors
unanimously found that Monsanto — which vowed to appeal — acted with
"malice" and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade
version RangerPro contributed "substantially" to Dewayne Johnson's
terminal illness.
Following eight
weeks of trial proceedings, the San Francisco jury ordered Monsanto to
pay $250 million in punitive damages along with compensatory damages and
other costs, bringing the total figure to nearly $290 million.
"The jury got it wrong," the company's vice president Scott Partridge told reporters outside the courthouse.
Johnson,
a California groundskeeper diagnosed in 2014 with non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma — a cancer that affects white blood cells — says he repeatedly
used a professional form of Roundup while working at a school in
Benicia, California.
"I want to thank everybody on the jury from
the bottom of my heart," Johnson, 46, said during a press conference
after the verdict.
"I am glad to be here; the cause is way bigger than me. Hopefully this thing will get the attention it needs."
PROBABLE CARCINOGEN
Johnson,
who appeared to be fighting back sobs while the verdict was read, wept
openly, as did some jurors, when he met with the panel afterward.
The
lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research
on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified
Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, causing
the state of California to follow suit.
"We
are sympathetic to Mr Johnson and his family," Monsanto said in a
statement promising to appeal the ruling and "continue to vigorously
defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use and
continues to be a vital, effective and safe tool for farmers and
others."
But Johnson's attorney Brent Wisner said the verdict "shows the evidence is overwhelming" that the product poses danger.
"When you are right, it is really easy to win," he said.
MORE TO COME?
Wisner called the ruling the "tip of the spear" of litigation likely to come.
The
lawsuit is the first to accuse the product of causing cancer, but
observers say a Monsanto defeat likely opens the door to thousands of
other claims against the company, which was recently acquired by
Germany's Bayer.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr
— an environmental lawyer, son of the late US senator and a member of
Johnson's legal team — hugged Johnson after the verdict.
"The
jury sent a message to the Monsanto boardroom that they have to change
the way they do business," said Kennedy, who championed the case
publicly.
Partridge said outside the
courthouse that Monsanto had no intention of settling the slew of
similar cases in the legal queue, saying if anything the verdict would
prompt the company to work harder to demonstrate the weed killer is
safe.
"It is the most widely used and
most widely studied herbicide in the world," Partridge said. "The
verdict today does not change the science."
Johnson's
team expressed confidence in the verdict, saying the judge in the case
had kept out a mountain of more evidence backing their position.
"All
the efforts by Monsanto to put their finger in the dike and hold back
the science; the science is now too persuasive," Kennedy said, pointing
to "cascading" scientific evidence about the health dangers of Roundup.
"You
not only see many people injured, you see the corruption of public
officials, the capture of agencies that are supposed to protect us from
pollution and the falsification of science," Kennedy said.
"In many ways, American democracy and our justice system was on trial in this case."
WIN FOR HUMANITY
Before jurors went to deliberate, Johnson's attorney Brent Wisner asked them to deliver a "day of reckoning" for Monsanto.
"The science finally caught up, where they couldn't bury it anymore," Wisner told the jury in closing arguments.
Roundup is Monsanto's leading product and glyphosate is reportedly the world's most commonly used weed killer.
"The
Johnson v Monsanto verdict is a win for all of humanity and all life on
earth," said Zen Honeycutt, founding executive director of non-profit
group Moms Across America.
"The
majority of our illnesses and losses to soil quality, water, wildlife
and marine life are due to toxic chemicals, particularly Monsanto's most
widely used glyphosate herbicides like Roundup and Ranger Pro."
Despite
its denials of any links between its products and ill health effects,
Monsanto has already suffered hits to its reputation in light of the
controversy.
Records unsealed earlier
by a federal court lent credence to Johnson's claims — internal company
emails with regulators suggested Monsanto had ghostwritten research
later attributed to academics.
Founded
in 1901 in St Louis, Missouri, Monsanto began producing agrochemicals
in the 1940s. It was acquired by Bayer for more than $62 billion in
June.
Monsanto was one of the
companies that produced the defoliant "Agent Orange" — which has been
linked to cancer and other diseases — for use by US forces in Vietnam.
The company denies responsibility for how the military used the product.
Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.
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