Monsanto Retains Roundup Lawsuit Win From 2022 After Appeals Court Verdict

Bayer subsidiary Monsanto has held onto one of its wins in the ongoing Roundup lawsuits.

The Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District upheld a 2022 verdict last week against plaintiff Stacey Moore, who had blamed his development of non-Hodgkin lymphoma on Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer.

Moore’s decision to appeal was based on several factors, none of which the appeals court found convincing. Some of these factors included the original court’s decisions to exclude testimony of a key expert and to allow a juror with past ties to Monsanto to remain on the jury.

The appeals court’s ruling represents another recent win for Bayer, which is coming off a victory in Schaffner v. Monsanto last month that created a circuit split with previous rulings. Bayer is continuing to push for Roundup litigation to make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is a key step in the company’s five-point plan to handle the lawsuits.

But plaintiffs have seen some recent big wins as well. Two circuit courts had ruled against Bayer before it received its positive ruling last month, and a jury awarded a Pennsylvania man who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma $2.25 billion in damages – which was later reduced to $400 million – in January.

As of this month, over 4,300 Roundup lawsuits are pending in multidistrict litigation.

Appeal Effort Fell Short Over Debates Around Expert Testimony & Juror’s Ties to Monsanto

According to court documents, Moore’s appeal was based on several decisions made by the original circuit court that he claimed were errors. This included the court’s exclusion of testimony from a clinical oncologist meant to establish causation between Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate and the development of cancer.

The court excluded the oncologist’s testimony after Monsanto filed a motion claiming that he was unqualified to testify on the subject, strongly hurting Moore’s case. The appeals court opted to agree with this decision.

“[The oncologist] acknowledged in his deposition testimony that he only began to examine the causation of NHL when he was asked to do so by Moore’s counsel,” the court said in its ruling. “He went on to admit that he is not an expert in epidemiology, biostatistics, genetics, genotoxicity, or animal bioassays.”

Moore’s appeal also focused on a juror who had a past connection with Monsanto but was still involved in the trial. The juror acknowledged that a law firm he worked for had assisted Monsanto in acquiring immigration paperwork for foreign employees over 30 years ago.

However, the circuit court determined that he could remain impartial, with the juror saying he could not even remember the names of any Monsanto executives from that time. The appeals court affirmed that the original decision to include him was appropriate.

“This Court finds Moore’s attempts to liken Juror to a current or recent employee of a party unpersuasive,” the appeals court stated. “The circuit court’s decision to overrule Moore’s motion to strike Juror for cause was not so clearly against the logic of the circumstances that it constituted an abuse of discretion. There was no error.”

Editor Lindsay Donaldson contributed to this article.