Will Roundup Trial End in Mistrial? Know the Case Progress

Will Roundup Trial End in Mistrial? Know the Case Progress

Introduction

On March 6, a pathologist testified during a federal bellwether trial that Roundup weedkiller was a substantial cause of cancer in humans and refuted Monsanto's arguments that a plaintiff's cancer was the result of hepatitis C, weight, and age.

In the second week of the trial, the pathologist told that the plaintiff was treated for hepatitis C within a  year of contracting it, and the treatment reduced the risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma from the virus. The pathologist also told that the plaintiff was completely cured of hepatitis in 2006, and denied Monsanto's argument that the plaintiff's NHL diagnosis in 2015 was caused by hepatitis.  the pathologist who was the last expert to testify the plaintiff's case told, "if he was going to get lymphoma, he would have gotten it when he had the infection, not nine years after he was cured." A third juror was dismissed after just one week into the high-profile trial in San Francisco. Presiding U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria dismissed three jurors from the nine-person jury so far, one for last-minute economic hardship, another for an undisclosed reason, and the third one on Tuesday, March 5, for the flu.  A fourth dropout from the jury would leave just five people in the jury and can cause the case to end in a mistrial, though the claims would likely enter a retrial later this year.

Bayer faces over 9,300 Roundup lawsuits in state and federal courts across the country over allegations that it leads to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in humans. Roundup cancer lawsuits are consolidated into multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2741; In Re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation) in the Northern District of California. Two more bellwether trials are scheduled for this year with a number of state court claims lined up through 2020.