Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, has recently broken its winning trial record with a number of jury verdicts against it.

Bayer’s Monsanto was ordered to pay more than $1.5 billion Friday over claims its patented weed-killer, Roundup, was linked to users’ cancer, Bloomberg reported.

James Draeger, Valerie Gunther and Dan Anderson were each awarded a total of $61.1 million in actual damages and $500 million each in punitive damages by jurors in state court in Jefferson City, Missouri.

The three people alleged that their non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas — a type of cancer that begins in your lymphatic system, part of the body’s immune system — were caused by years of using Roundup while gardening.

  • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
    211·
    8 months ago

    $1.5b is barely a slap on the wrists, but hopefully the first in an avalanche of lawsuits for them. This is like one fiscal quarter’s revenue for RoundUp, but hopefully the signal of the beginning of the end. Bayer gotta be really regretting that big Monsanto purchase.

    Now do insecticides.

    ETA: I retract a bit of my previous statement, looks like they were up to $11b in payouts as of last year, and looking to surpass the $16b they set aside for these lawsuits. Keep slapping that wrist!

    • treefrog@lemm.ee
      101·
      8 months ago

      Yeah, I was thinking 1.5b sounded like nothing. But this is two people. So, I’m okay with this.

      • aidan@lemmy.world
        11·
        8 months ago

        I’d like to point out, Alex Jones was sued for $1b for being a dick on the internet.

        • treefrog@lemm.ee
          21·
          8 months ago

          Split between about twenty people. So $50 million each vs $750 million each.

          And I would also like to point out that Alex’s being a dick on the Internet was directly linked to threats of violence made against Sandy Hook families. So his words were far from harmless and far more damaging than your average dick on the Internet.