Lawyers on both sides of the ongoing $10 billion Roundup settlement talks told the judge this week they are once again making progress and signing deals for the Roundup cancer lawsuit.

Three of the attorneys for plaintiffs suing Bayer and its subsidiary Monsanto filed new notices in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Sept. 14 revealing they had come to terms on binding settlements for 15,000 clients since the matter was last in court. None of the documents indicated how much of the $10 billion overall settlement the individual and class action lawsuits involved would be resolved for.

The next hearing on Bayer’s Roundup settlement talks is scheduled on Sept. 24.

Progress in Contrast With Previous Reports

Monday’s developments marked a sharp turnaround from the way things seemed to be headed when the parties met to update U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria on Aug. 27. At that time, lawyers for some of the lead plaintiffs reported Bayer hadn’t yet signed thousands of already negotiated agreements and had terminated one deal to resolve a whole crop of others – news that led Chhabria to suggest Bayer seemed to be “welching on its deals,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

In fact, Chhabria went so far as to direct all the attorneys involved to submit plans to restart the litigation regardless of Bayer’s insistence the delays were nothing more than a “speed bump” on the road to resolution.

Cancer Claims Drove Roundup Settlement Talks

Bayer first announced in June it had reached a $10 billion tentative settlement agreement to bring an end to nearly 95,000 lawsuits and class action lawsuits filed against it and Monsanto over claims the popular weedkiller causes cancer and other illnesses and injury. Another 30,000 or so other ongoing cases are not included in the proposed settlement.

Three other lawsuits against Bayer/Monsanto have gone to trial in the last two years and resulted in significant jury awards – ranging from $80 million to $2 billion – all of which are under appeal. Still more lawsuits and class action lawsuits have been filed against the company in recent months.

The central issue in all of the cases is the potential health risks posed by the main active ingredient in Roundup – glyphosate. Researchers have been working for decades to learn whether the use of herbicides containing glyphosate can cause cancer, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Results have been less than clear and public health officials have interpreted them differently.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, has said as recently as April 2019 that glyphosate is safe. EPA officials point to the agency’s research and insist it indicates glyphosate poses no risk and “is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” Meanwhile, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has held the position that glyphosate is ” probably carcinogenic to humans” since 2015. Officials there say their research generated “limited evidence” of cancer in people and “sufficient evidence” of cancer in study animals.

Evolution of Bayer’s Roundup Settlement Talks

Bayer began negotiating with the majority of its plaintiffs in 2019. About a year later, the company submitted its proposed settlement agreement to the court for preliminary approval. The $10 billion deal included $8.75 billion to cover roughly 95,000 class action lawsuits and others claiming Roundup made them or their loved ones sick. It also included a $1.25 billion allowance to be set aside to address future claims from Roundup customers who might develop health problems.

That was the first speed bump.

Judge Chhabria issued a court order on July 6 saying he was “skeptical of the propriety and fairness of the proposed settlement” and was inclined to deny it because of the future claims component. Not only did the judge say he was troubled by limiting the rights of consumers in the future, he questioned the wisdom of another aspect of the future claims allowed. Some of the money was meant to pay to create an independent panel of experts to determine, once and for all, whether glyphosate causes cancer.

Bayer later withdrew the future claims provision from the proposed settlement.

In late July, Environmental Health News reported that, as Bayer plaintiffs were being informed about the Roundup settlement talks, some were less than satisfied with the proposed terms. Those interviewed said when they heard from their lawyers and read some of the paperwork they discovered they “could end up with little to no money, depending upon a range of factors” including that they might be required to pay their insurance companies back for coverage from their potential share of the settlement.

Join a Roundup Weed Killer Cancer Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

You may qualify for this Roundup cancer lawsuit investigation if you were diagnosed with one of these conditions after using Roundup:

• Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
• B-cell lymphoma
• T-cell lymphoma
• Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)
• Hairy cell lymphoma

See if you qualify by filling out the form on this page for a case evaluation with an experienced Roundup lawsuit attorney. 

Get a Case Evaluation

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.