Jury To Decide Monsanto Liability In Sonoma Co. Man's Cancer Suit

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — A Sonoma County man's case against Monsanto Co. continued Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco Wednesday as a jury began hearing evidence on whether the agrochemical company is legally and financially liable for the man's cancer.

On Tuesday, the six-member civil jury unanimously concluded that Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller was a "substantial factor" in Edwin Hardeman's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

That finding cleared the way for a second phase of trial in which the jury must decide whether Monsanto is legally liable and if so, whether and how much it must pay in a financial damages award.

Hardeman, 70, whose lymphoma was diagnosed in 2015, claims his illness resulted from 26 years of spraying Roundup to kill poison oak and weeds on properties in Gualala and Forestville between 1986 and 2012.

His lawyers claim Monsanto should have warned him of the dangers but instead sought to counter studies that might show a link between Roundup and cancer, even to the point of ghost-writing some papers.

Monsanto maintains it acted responsibly and that as of 2012, no regulatory agencies or health organizations banned the herbicide.

Monsanto attorney Brian Stekloff told the jury during an opening statement Wednesday, "It's not a popularity contest. Monsanto, consistent with science, did act responsibly and should not be held liable in Phase 2."

Hardeman's case is the first to go to trial of more than 760 lawsuits that were filed against Monsanto in federal courts around the nation and transferred to the court of U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco.

Hundreds of other lawsuits against Monsanto are pending in state courts. Last year, a San Francisco Superior Court jury awarded $289 million, later reduced by the trial judge to $78 million, to cancer-stricken former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson of Vallejo.

Monsanto, now a subsidiary of Bayer AG of Germany, is appealing that verdict.

— Bay City News Service