Roundup Settlement Deadline Missed; Litigation Might Resume

Roundup Settlement Deadline Missed; Litigation Might Resume

Introduction

On Monday, attorneys representing Roundup manufacturer filed a joint case management statement and litigation plan with U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, overseeing the rising weedkiller litigation, indicating that the company missed the deadline set by the court.

The deadline was also set to the same day on which the statement was filed, and the judge had indicated to restart the litigation at full throttle over claims alleging the weedkiller of causing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

In the filing, the manufacturer disclosed that there are currently 3,787 plaintiffs with pending cases within the MDL, out of which 1,861 cases are not subject to a Master Settlement Agreement (MSA). The manufacturer said that the parties are actively engaged in the ongoing settlement discussions, and it is making contact with all of the counsel who represents these 1861 plaintiffs.

The filing further noted that Special Master, Ken Feinberg, is serving as a mediator between the parties with more than nine formal mediations underway. Additionally, Feinberg has recently launched an effort to reach out to the remaining plaintiffs that are not currently in active discussions with Monsanto, Bayer's subsidiary, particularly those with four or fewer cases in the MDL and pro se plaintiffs, to request information about those cases to facilitate the resolution of these remaining plaintiffs’ claims.

Most of the Roundup cases are in state courts and weren't subject to Monday’s deadline. The manufacturer had previously stated that it had reached agreements to resolve about 44,000 U.S. lawsuits or about 35% of the more than 125,000 filed and unfiled claims. The manufacturer will again appear before the judge on November 9.

The filing was done a day before the company issued a third-quarter report, indicating a challenging quarter impacted substantially by the Covid-19 pandemic and the legal action over Roundup.