Bayer Braces for Third Roundup Verdict

(Bloomberg) -- Bayer AG is bracing for its third jury verdict over claims its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, after two previous trials in California yielded damages totaling $159 million.

A lawyer for a couple suing over the herbicide told jurors Wednesday in state court in Oakland, California, that Monsanto’s internal data and documents reveal its “manipulation and fabrication of science,” just like other defective products that got to market based on fraudulent representations that they were safe.

“This is that moment -- where you get to make them change their conduct,” attorney Brent Wisner told the jury during closing arguments in a trial that started last month. “It’s pretty damn cool. This is their day of reckoning.”

The Oakland trial features an elderly couple, Alva and Alberta Pilliod, who blame their non-Hodgkin lymphoma on exposure to Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate. It follows decisions by juries in state and federal court in San Francisco in favor of plaintiffs.

Bayer Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann faces increased shareholder pressure due to the company’s acquisition of Monsanto last year, and the litigation it inherited from the agrochemical giant. Monsanto is the named defendant in U.S. lawsuits over Roundup filed by 13,400 people, a number that jumps by thousands with each passing quarter.

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Bayer denies that Roundup causes cancer and the company has been holding out hope for a court win that would give Baumann some breathing space as the company hones its legal response to the swelling wave of litigation. A third loss, however, could force the company to accelerate talks on a global settlement, which analysts have said could top $5 billion.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers, meanwhile, with two wins behind them, are honing their own arguments. In Oakland, Wisner presented evidence previous juries hadn’t seen, and portrayed internal emails and company advertising as evidence of glib disregard for consumer safety.

He played a video of an advertisement for Roundup showing a suburban man in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt killing weeds using the company’s “one-touch wand” to a soundtrack invoking the Old West. He pointed to Monsanto’s own exposure studies recommending that the herbicide be applied with chemical boots and overalls.

“That’s deliberate and knowing disregard for human safety, and it directly links to the Pilliods,” Wisner said.

The Oakland case is Pilliod v. Monsanto Co. RG17862702, California Superior Court, County of Alameda (Oakland).

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