The makers of Roundup, the popular brand of weed killer used in millions of homes and businesses across the United States, are facing widespread legal challenges from users who claim they developed deadly cancers after using the product.
Bayer acquired Monsanto, the makers of Roundup and other products, for $63 billion in 2019. In doing so, Bayer also inherited thousands of personal injury lawsuits against Roundup nationwide.
Roundup Lawsuit: Facts and Payouts
The personal injury lawsuits are centered around Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, which plaintiffs claim causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer in the brain, bones and other areas of the body. The company contends Roundup is safe and did not cause the plaintiffs to develop cancer.
As of October 2019, more than 13,000 lawsuits against the makers of Roundup have been filed nationwide, seeking damages allegedly caused by the brand of herbicide.
Roundup Lawsuit Facts
Bayer has already lost a handful of civil lawsuits across the United States over Roundup injuries. The popular weed-killing product was originally made by Monsanto, which was acquired by the German pharma and chemicals giant last year. Bayer disputes that Roundup is unsafe and is appealing all three U.S. jury verdicts that have gone against the company.
Roundup Lawsuit Payouts
With thousands of Roundup lawsuits still making their way through courts across the United States, some have reached verdicts resulting in large payouts to plaintiffs.
In July 2019, a Northern California judge indicated that she would slash a $2 billion judgement for a couple that sued the makers of Roundup to about $250 million. The original award included $55 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages meant to punish Bayer for making a product that damaged the general public. The multi-million dollar judgement is just one of thousands of similar Roundup injury lawsuits pending in courts nationwide.
That massive damages award followed two California Roundup lawsuit judgments that awarded $80 million and $78 million respectively to two other plaintiffs who claimed they had developed cancer after using Roundup. The large awards keeps coming as more Roundup lawsuits reach juries or settlements before trial.