Roundup Monsanto Court Case Nears as Patient is Critically Ill

A California court case has been granted preference status as one of the patients, Victor Berliant, has become critically ill.

Berliant and over 6,000 people are currently suing Monsanto’s German owner Bayer AG.

Due to his cancer condition, he was granted a faster court case date. The others are set to be heard May 5 and are all represented by the Miller firm.

Berliant has been diagnosed with Stage IV T-cell Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and set to go through bone marrow surgery in March, since chemotherapy failed. Due to the complications, it is unknown that he would survive and be able to participate on the other trial date.

The complaint filed with the court claims that both Berliant and his wife, Linda Berliant, believes his cancer came from using Roundup approximately between 1989 to 2017.

The Miller Firm has been one of the primary law firms for plaintiffs across the nation.

Both the Miller firm, and the firm of Weitz & Luxenberg, have a close to 20,000 plaintiffs together suing Bayer.

A few of the plaintiffs did recently decide to cancel their trials, as they were able to settle out of court with specific settlement amounts.

Bayer is set to have their annual meeting on April 28, in Bonn, Germany, where investors are hoping an agreement could be made. If one is made, it does not stop further litigation of future claims.

So far, three cases have gone to trial and Bayer lost at each one. Juries awarded $2.3 billion to the plaintiffs, but judges lowered the award to $190 million by ruling judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Judgment notwithstanding the verdict is used at a judges discretion, to avoid extreme and unreasonable jury decisions.

A jury granted $265 million to Bill Bader of Bader Farms Inc. within the last two weeks after the farmer sued Monsanto. The farmer was able to convince a jury that Roundup was behind the loss of his livelihood.

Bill Bader was represented by Billy Randles.

Randles was able to discover that Monsanto knew in advance of the implications of Roundup through their internal communication.

According to U.S. Right To Know:

“The jury concluded that Monsanto and BASF conspired in actions they knew would lead to widespread crop damage because they expected it would increase their own profits.”

Peiffer of Peiffer Wolf Carr & Kane law firm, who has also had cases related to Monsanto, believes, since the ruling, there will be another 2,000 farmers to likely become plaintiffs against Monsanto.

Several trials have been canceled, as Bayer is attempting to have a global payout for settlements of roughly $10 billion.

Even with all the lawsuits, Roundup is still being sold in many major stores.