Is it any wonder that the general public has such a low opinion of lawyers?
Bayer recently announced that it will spend up to US$10.9b to settle close to 100,000 lawsuits in the US (on a no admission of liability basis), which allege that Roundup caused cancer in the wider community.
I am certain that Bayer drew a line under this vast mountain of cases for the simple reason that it was cheaper in the long run to settle (as astonishing as that seems, given the settlement sum), rather than become mired in a perpetually draining cycle of never-ending litigation.
The settlement decision followed on the back of three successful claims against Monsanto (now owned by Bayer), the first of which involved an award of US$289m (including US$250m in punitive damages) to a US groundskeeper by a unanimous jury, which found that Roundup caused the plaintiff's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
The Californian Court of Appeal recently lowered the damages sum to US$20m in light of the plaintiff's reduced life expectancy.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the expert testimony in the original trial focused on the severely discredited findings prepared by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
To top it all off, two Virginia lawyers pleaded guilty to extortion charges over their roles in attempting to demand a US$200m payment from Monsanto. The illegal payment was perversely offered up as a 'consulting fee' to allow Monsanto to avoid the potentially significant financial consequences of protracted and public rounds of class action litigation.
On the flip side of this gross gaming of the US judicial system by class action lawyers, schadenfreude and common sense reigned supreme in June 2020, when a US Federal Appeals Court ruled that the state of California could not require Bayer to label Roundup with a cancer warning.
The judge considered the cancer warning to be misleading and found that the link between glyphosate and cancer was not backed by regulatory and scientific findings.
These two Californian cases neatly show the schizophrenic nature of the US judicial system, which have rightly held the profession up to ridicule given the conga line of charlatans, rent seekers and anti-science Jacobins on show.
Closer to home, in April 2020 a class action was launched against Monsanto in Australia on behalf of a number of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma sufferers, allegedly due to their exposure to Roundup.
It is significant to note that this proceeding will be heard before a judge alone (in contrast to the US jury trials), which will inevitably lead to a more balanced, less emotional consideration of the science involved.
In circumstances where every international agency (save for IARC) that has reviewed the safety of glyphosate (including the APVMA, FDA, EPA and European Food Safety Authority) have declared Roundup to be safe to use in accordance with its instructions, it will certainly be interesting to see how the Federal Court deals with the merits of this case.
It may be premature to make a call on the outcome of the Australian proceedings, but I have no doubt that Bayer will fight this lawsuit all the way to a contested hearing as, given the insurmountable scientific evidence that Bayer has in its favour, it is to be hoped that justice will finally prevail in favour of Bayer.
- Trent Thorne, agribusiness lawyer
