https://www.ehn.org/monsanto-trial-in-st-louis-on-roundup-2637374300.html
[links and video in online article]
May 17, 2019
Up next – Trial in Monsanto’s hometown set for August after $2 billion
Roundup cancer verdict
"The things that have gone on here, I want St. Louis juries to hear this
stuff."
Carey Gillam
After three stunning courtroom losses in California, the legal battle
over the safety of Monsanto's top-selling Roundup herbicide is headed
for the company's hometown, where corporate officials can be forced to
appear on the witness stand, and legal precedence shows a history of
anti-corporate judgments.
Sharlean Gordon, a cancer-stricken woman in her 50s, is the next
plaintiff currently set for trial. Gordon v. Monsanto starts Aug. 19 in
St. Louis County Circuit Court, located just a few miles from the St.
Louis, Missouri-area campus that was the company's longtime world
headquarters until Bayer bought Monsanto last June. The case was filed
in July 2017 on behalf of more than 75 plaintiffs and Gordon is the
first of that group to go to trial.
According to the complaint, Gordon purchased and used Roundup for at
least 15 continuous years through approximately 2017 and was diagnosed
with a form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2006. Gordon has gone through two
stem cell transplants and spent a year in a nursing home at one point in
her treatment.
She is so debilitated that it is difficult for her to be mobile.
Her case, like that of the thousands of others filed around the United
States, alleges use of Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicides caused her
to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
"She's been through hell," St. Louis attorney Eric Holland, one of the
legal team members representing Gordon, told EHN. "She's horribly
injured. The human toll here is tremendous. I think Sharlean is really
going to put a face on what Monsanto's done to people."
Gordon said the hardest part about preparing for trial is determining
what evidence to present to the jury within the three-week time span
that the judge has set for the trial.
"This evidence against them, their conduct, is the most outrageous I've
seen in my 30 years of doing this," Holland said. "The things that have
gone on here, I want St. Louis juries to hear this stuff."
That Gordon trial will be followed by a September 9 trial also in St.
Louis County in a case brought by plaintiffs Maurice Cohen and Burrell Lamb.
Monsanto's deep roots in the community, including a large employment
base and generous charitable donations throughout the area, could favor
its chances with local jurors.
But on the flip side, St. Louis is regarded in legal circles as one the
most favorable places for plaintiffs to bring lawsuits against
corporations and there is a long history of large verdicts against major
companies. St. Louis City Court is generally considered the most
favorable but St. Louis County is also desired by plaintiffs' attorneys.
The approach of the August and September trials comes on the heels of a
stunning $2 billion verdict issued against Monsanto May 13. In that
case, a jury in Oakland, California, awarded married couple Alva and
Alberta Pilliod, who both suffer from cancer, $55 million in
compensatory damages and $1 billion each in punitive damages.
The jury found that Monsanto has spent years covering up evidence that
its herbicide causes cancer.
That verdict came only a little more than a month after a San Francisco
jury ordered Monsanto to pay $80 million in damages to Edwin Hardeman,
who also developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after using Roundup. And last
summer, a jury ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million to groundskeeper
Dewayne "Lee" Johnson who received a terminal cancer diagnosis after
using Monsanto herbicides in his job.
Aimee Wagstaff, who was co-lead counsel for Hardeman, is set to try the
Gordon case in St. Louis with Holland. Wagstaff said she plans to
subpoena several Monsanto scientists to appear on the witness stand to
answer questions directly in front of a jury.
She and the other attorneys trying the California cases were not able to
force Monsanto employees to testify live because of the distance. The
law provides that witnesses cannot be compelled to travel more than 100
miles or out of state from where they live or work.
Mediation meeting
The trial losses have left Monsanto and its German owner Bayer AG under
siege. Angry investors have pushed share prices to the lowest levels in
roughly seven years, erasing more than 40 percent of Bayer's market value.
And some investors are calling for Bayer CEO Werner Baumann to be ousted
for championing the Monsanto acquisition, which closed in June of last
year just as the first trial was getting underway.
Bayer maintains that there is no valid evidence of cancer causation
associated with Monsanto's herbicides, and says it believes it will win
on appeal. But U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria has ordered Bayer to
begin mediation talks aimed at potentially settling the sprawling mass
of lawsuits that includes roughly 13,400 plaintiffs in the United States
alone.
All the plaintiffs are cancer victims or their family members and all
allege Monsanto engaged in a range of deceptive tactics to hide the
risks of its herbicides, including manipulating the scientific record
with ghostwritten studies, colluding with regulators, and using outside
individuals and organizations to promote the safety of its products
while making sure they falsely appeared to be acting independently of
the company.
A May 22 hearing is being held in part to define details of the
mediation process. Bayer has indicated that it will comply with the
order, but may not yet be ready to consider settling the litigation
despite the courtroom losses.
Meanwhile, the litigation that originated in the United States has
crossed the border into Canada where a Saskatchewan farmer is leading a
class action lawsuit against Bayer and Monsanto making allegations that
mirror those in the U.S. lawsuits.
"The Queen of Roundup"
Elaine Stevick of Petaluma, California was supposed to be the next in
line to take on Monsanto at trial.
But in his order of mediation, Judge Chhabria also vacated her May 20
trial date. A new trial date is to be discussed at the hearing on Wednesday.
Stevick and her husband Christopher Stevick sued Monsanto in April of
2016 and said in an interview that they are eager to get their chance to
confront the company over the devastating damage they say Elaine's use
of Roundup has done to her health.
She was diagnosed in December 2014 at the age of 63 with multiple brain
tumors due to a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma called central nervous
system lymphoma (CNSL). Alberta Pilliod, who just won the most recent
trial, also had a CNSL brain tumor.
The couple purchased an old Victorian home and overgrown property in
1990 and while Christopher worked on renovating the interior of the
house, Elaine's job was to spray weed killer over the weeds and wild
onions that the couple said took over a good portion of the property.
She sprayed multiple times a year until she was diagnosed with cancer.
She never wore gloves or other protective clothing because believed it
to be as safe as advertised, she said.
Stevick is currently in remission but nearly died at one point in her
treatment, Christopher Stevick said.
"I called her the 'queen of Roundup' because she was always walking
around spraying the stuff," he told EHN.
The couple attended parts of both the Pilliod and Hardeman trials, and
said they are grateful the truth about Monsanto's actions to hide the
risks are coming into the public spotlight. And they want to see Bayer
and Monsanto start warning users about the cancer risks of Roundup and
other glyphosate-based herbicides.
"We want the companies to take responsibility for warning people—even if
there is a chance that something would be harmful or hazardous for them,
people should be warned," Elaine Stevick told EHN.
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