Roundup MDL: Final Pretrial Conference Of A Case On Jan. 25

Roundup MDL: Final Pretrial Conference Of A Case On Jan. 25

Introduction

Last week, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, overseeing all Roundup cancer lawsuits, denied Monsanto’s motion to exclude the testimony of expert witnesses and for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by a longtime winery worker in Napa County, California, who died a year ago from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, allegedly caused by the company's controversial weedkiller.

According to the lawsuit filed, the worker worked in the wineries for 33 years, where he applied the glyphosate-based herbicides to sprawling acreage of wineries. In 2014, he was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and he underwent several rounds of chemotherapy and other treatments before dying in December 2019.

The lawsuit is now being pursued by his surviving family members, which includes four sons. The trial is currently set for a final pretrial conference on January 25, after Judge Chhabria denied the summary judgment motion.

The lawyers representing the family have also agreed to a settlement offered by Bayer. The settlement amount, if approved, will go to the worker's four sons.

The litigation was paused as the company had announced in June that it would pay more than $10 billion in Roundup settlement. However, the lawsuits were resumed as the company missed the deadline set by the court for settlement negotiations.

Special Master, Ken Feinberg, is serving as a mediator between the parties, and he launched an effort to reach out to the plaintiffs that are not currently in active discussions with Monsanto, particularly those with four or fewer claims in the MDL and pro se plaintiffs, to request information about those cases to facilitate a resolution.

Currently, Bayer is facing more than 125,000 Roundup lawsuits, and the company has acknowledged the filing of 52,500 lawsuits. The lawsuits are consolidated under MDL No. 2741 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.