On Monday, a jury in federal court in San Francisco began a trial that is expected to take a month and will decide whether Roundup caused Edwin Hardeman’s (another California man) cancer. The plaintiffs’ attorneys believe this trial “could help determine the fate of hundreds of similar lawsuits.”1 Hardeman, 70, is now the second plaintiff to go to trial but there are still thousands of people, all over the country, who claim the Big Ag giant’s weed killer caused their cancer.
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U.S. Judge Vince Chhabria is overseeing Hardeman’s case, as well as hundreds of other Roundup lawsuits “and has deemed Hardeman’s case and two others ‘bellwether trials.’”1
“The outcome of bellwether cases can help attorneys decide whether to continue fighting similar suits in court or settle them. A jury verdict in favor of Hardeman and the other test plaintiffs would give their attorneys a strong bargaining position in any settlement talks for the remaining cases before Chhabria, said David Levine, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law who has followed the Roundup litigation.”1
The weed killer, sold in more than 160 countries and (sadly) used wildly in the U.S., was created by Monsanto in the 1970s. However, while it was allowed to silently harm people for many years, in 2015, glyphosate- the main ingredient in Roundup- was classified as a “probable human carcinogen” by the IARC, a wing of the World Health Organization.
And since then, people have finally had a leg to stand on. (The EPA continues to lie and say that when used according to the label’s directions, the poison is totally safe.)
“Hardeman started using Roundup products to treat poison oak, overgrowth and weeds on his 56-acre Sonoma County property in the 1980s and continued using them through 2012, according to his attorneys. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2015.”1
Last month, Chhabria issued a ruling breaking up Hardeman’s trial into two phases; his attorneys will first have to convince jurors that his use of Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and then they can make arguments for punitive damages.
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We will update you as the trial goes on.
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