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 The closely-watched case brought by plaintiff Edward Hardeman is
only the second of some 11,200 Roundup lawsuits to go to trial in
the United States. Another California man was awarded $289 million
in August after a state court jury in August found Roundup caused
his cancer, sending Bayer shares plunging.
Hardeman's case has proceeded differently from the earlier trial,
with an initial phase exclusively focused on scientific facts while
omitting evidence of alleged corporate misconduct by company
representatives.
Following the first phase, the six jurors in San Francisco federal
court were asked by U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria to
decide whether Roundup was a "substantial factor" in causing
Hardeman's cancer.
If the jury finds Roundup to have caused Hardeman's cancer, the
trial will proceed into a second stage, where his lawyers can
present evidence allegedly showing the company's efforts to
influence scientists, regulators and the public about the safety of
its products.
Hardeman's lawyer, Aimee Wagstaff, during her closing arguments on
Tuesday said Hardeman had "extreme" exposure to Roundup, spraying
the chemical more than 300 times over 26 years.
"The dose makes the poison. The more you use, the higher the risk,"
Wagstaff said. She urged jurors to consider all studies, including
of rodents and cells, which she said showed an elevated cancer risk.
Bayer, which acquired Monsanto for $63 billion, denies allegations
that Roundup, or glyphosate, cause cancer. It says decades of
studies and regulatory evaluations, primarily of real-world human
exposure data, have shown the weed killer to be safe for human use
regardless of exposure levels.
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Wagstaff criticized the epidemiological studies as flawed.
Brian Stekloff, a lawyer for Bayer, in his closing statement said
the cause of Hardeman's cancer, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
generally, was not known.
"No one can tell you the cause," Stekloff said, adding that Hardeman
had some risk factors, such as old age and a history of hepatitis.
Chhabria decided in January to split Hardeman's case into two
phases. He called evidence of alleged corporate misconduct "a
distraction" from the scientific question of whether glyphosate
causes cancer.
Hardeman's trial is a test case for some 760 cases nationwide
consolidated before Chhabria in federal court.
Evidence of corporate misconduct was seen as playing a key role in
the earlier state court case. The verdict in that case was later
reduced to $78 million and is on appeal.
Plaintiff lawyers called Chhabria's decision to exclude similar
evidence from the first phase of Hardeman's case "unfair," saying
their scientific evidence was inextricably linked to Monsanto's
alleged attempts to manipulate, misrepresent and intimidate
scientists.
(Reporting by Jim Christie in San Francisco; additonal reporting and
writing by Tina Bellon; editing by Anthony Lin and Bill Berkrot)
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