According to a press release provided by the Dallas, TX-based Fears Nachawati Law Firm, more than 40,000 current claims on behalf of individuals diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma after exposure to Roundup Weed Killer remain unresolved.
Bayer’s recent proposal to settle future Roundup litigation for $2 billion still needs to be approved by U.S. District Judge, Vince Chhabria, who previously rejected Bayer’s first plan to settle future Roundup cases. But even after Bayer’s revised plan B, dozens of law firms and plaintiffs are opposed to the plan, claiming that it is inconsistent and unfair to cancer victims.
In June 2018, Bayer finally acquired Monsanto for $63 billion. But in doing so, it would inherit the dissolved company’s legal troubles. Roughly one month after the acquisition was finalized, the first of three Roundup claims that have gone to trial started. Eventually, plaintiffs in all three trials were awarded multi-million-dollar awards.
Facing 125,000 individual Roundup claims, in June 2020, Bayer announced it would settle roughly 90,000 of the claims for nearly $11 billion. But under the proposal to settle future Roundup litigation, which if approved by Judge Chhabria, would place a four-year pause on Roundup litigation for class members, the maximum compensation tier is roughly only $200,000; pennies on the dollar in comparison to the three cases that have gone to trial.
Roundup plaintiffs who are in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) “increasingly see a jury trial as the only avenue for justice,” said trial lawyer Majed Nachawati of Fears Nachawati Law Firm.
Another reason that firms such as Fears Nachawati are opposed to the MDL settlement plan is that Bayer would continue to be allowed to sell Roundup.
“This proposed settlement has been fatally flawed from the beginning,” Nachawati added. “Bayer shareholders would like to put this significant exposure behind them, however Bayer’s strategy will only ensure that jury trials will take place for years to come.”
And yet another reason plaintiffs and their attorneys are opposed to the settlement is that under the proposed plan, Bayer can negotiate settlement terms not in a blanket, one-payment-fits-all solution, but rather separately with one law firm at a time. Consequently, according to the press release, law firms that were part of the MDL leadership committee were among the first to settle and reached agreements that are more than twice the amount the remaining cancer claims are being offered.
