The U.S. Supreme Court has chosen not to review a $39 million settlement that resolved a class action lawsuit related to Roundup, a weedkiller produced by Monsanto, now owned by Bayer AG. Consumers claimed that Monsanto failed to include cancer-warning labels on its weedkilling products containing glyphosate, MedTruth.com reported.
It’s important to note that this settlement is separate from the $11 billion settlement proposed by Bayer AG in 2020, which resolved around 95,000 lawsuits that were filed by individuals alleging that long-term exposure to Roundup caused them to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Around 30,000 Roundup lawsuits still remain unresolved, and trials related to Roundup are ongoing.
The $39 million settlement, approved by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria last year, was part of multidistrict litigation (MDL) overseeing all federally-consolidated Roundup cases. The settlement provided refunds equivalent to about 20% of the average retail price paid by consumers. Additionally, after compensating the class participants, $14 million was allocated to nonprofit organizations.
One of the plaintiffs involved in the Roundup case challenged the settlement and appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The plaintiff argued that the District Court did not adequately involve the plaintiffs in the decision-making process and should have divided the funds among the class members rather than giving $14 million to nonprofit organizations.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the plaintiff’s arguments, prompting the plaintiff to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a review. However, on May 15, the Supreme Court denied the petition, thereby upholding the $39 million settlement regarding failure-to-warn claims.
It’s worth noting that the $39 million settlement is only one among several class action lawsuits filed by different consumer groups seeking damages, even if they haven’t been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma or any other serious injuries.
This is the third time the Supreme Court has declined to review a Roundup-related decision. Bayer had petitioned the court on two separate occasions to review two of the first three Roundup trials. In one of those trials, a California couple was initially awarded $2 billion in a jury trial, but the amount was later reduced to $86.7 million. The Supreme Court also declined to review a $25 million jury verdict in favor of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman, whose Roundup case was the first to be adjudicated by a federal jury. Bayer did not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the nation’s first Roundup verdict, which initially awarded plaintiff Dwayne “Lee” Johnson nearly $290 million. That award was slashed twice and stands at $20.5 million.
