Man Awarded $332 Million in Lawsuit Against Weedkiller Company

A California jury has awarded $332 million to a man who sued chemical giant Monsanto Co. contending that his cancer was related to decades of using its Roundup weedkiller.

The lawsuit was filed by Mike Dennis, 57, of Carlsbad, who was diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2020.

Dennis claimed that his illness was caused by Roundup's active ingredient, glyphosate.

After a trial in the San Diego Superior Court, he was awarded $7 million in compensatory damages and $325 million in punitive damages.

Despite being in remission for nearly three years, Dennis's doctors have warned him of a potential relapse, leaving him in an uncertain state.

The jury found that Monsanto, now a division of Bayer, failed to adequately warn users about the risks of Roundup.

However, the jurors also ruled in Bayer's favor, stating that the product design wasn't defective and the company wasn't negligent.

Bayer, which acquired Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018, plans to appeal the verdict, citing legal and evidentiary errors made during the trial.

In recent years, Bayer has been dealing with thousands of claims and lawsuits related to Roundup, and has announced a settlement of up to $10.9 billion to resolve some of these cases.