Press Conference Held After the $2 billion Jury Verdict in Pilliod et al. v. Monsanto Co.

The $2 billion jury verdict in Pilliod et al. v. Monsanto, was the third successful verdict in a row against Monsanto (now part of Bayer) that proved Monsanto’s flagship weed killer, Roundup, causes cancer, specifically non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The trial for Alva and Alberta Pilliod began on March 28, 2019, at the Superior Court of California for the County of Alameda in Oakland, California. After seven weeks of trial, the jury awarded the Pilliods $2.055 billion. A press conference on the landmark verdict was held at the offices of Audet & Partners in San Francisco at 4:30 p.m. on May 13, 2019, just hours after the verdict was reached. Plaintiffs Alva and Alberta Pilliod and some members of their legal team, Mike Miller (co-lead trial counsel), R. Brent Wisner (co-lead trial counsel) and Mark Burton, gave statements and answered questions.

Alva and Alberta Pilliod, a Livermore, California couple in their 70s, used Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer together for more than 30 years to landscape their home and other properties. They were both diagnosed with the same type of NHL, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), associated with Roundup exposure. In 2011, Alva was diagnosed with systemic NHL in many of his bones, which spread to his pelvis and spine. Alberta was diagnosed with NHL brain cancer in 2015.

In their Roundup cancer lawsuit, the couple attributed their cancer diagnoses on exposure to Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, and accused Monsanto of fraudulently representing that Roundup is safe despite scientific evidence linking exposure to NHL.

At trial, attorneys for the Pilliods, Michael Miller of the Miller Firm and R. Brent Wisner of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, showed jurors a trove of internal Monsanto documents they say demonstrate the agrochemical giant’s manipulation of scientific literature, including ghostwriting several review papers on glyphosate published in scientific journals and cited in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory reviews.

The jury also saw documents showing Monsanto’s efforts to influence EPA and other regulatory agencies, as well as evidence that Monsanto ran a public relations campaign to plant favorable stories in Reuters and other media outlets to defend its products and discredit scientists who determined glyphosate was linked to cancer.

During closing arguments, Wisner told the jury that Roundup was “born in fraud” because the agrochemical received EPA approval in 1974 based on studies conducted at Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories (IBT). A subsequent EPA review of the data found that IBT routinely falsified data. Three IBT executives were later convicted of fraud. According to Wisner, from that point on, Monsanto repeatedly refused to conduct studies on glyphosate and Roundup, even after the EPA and its own toxicologist told Monsanto that it needed to conduct more studies to address safety concerns.

After approximately 7 weeks of trial proceedings, the jury found that exposure to Roundup caused the Pilliods to develop NHL and that Monsanto failed to warn of this severe health hazard. Importantly, the jury also found that Monsanto acted with malice, oppression, or fraud and should be punished for its conduct. Learn more here

Thanks to Jeffrey Smith of Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) for allowing us to use his version of this press conference and for his heartfelt acknowledgement of the lawyers, the jury and the Pilliods.