Couple With Cancer Wins $2 Billion in Case Against Monsanto

In determining that the illnesses came about from exposure to glyphosate in Roundup, a California jury delivers the biggest loss so far to the herbicide manufacturer in lawsuits about the product.

Written byCatherine Offord

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Update (July 26): As several legal experts predicted, the $2 billion award for the couple was reduced yesterday to a smaller amount, $86.7 million, after a judge presiding over the case found the punitive portion of the damages to be excessive and unconstitutional. The plaintiffs have yet to formally accept the award, which now consists of around $17 million in compensatory and $69 million in punitive damages, Reuters reports. Bayer has said in a statement that it will appeal for the punitive damages to be struck completely.

A jury in California has ordered global agribusiness Monsanto to pay more than $2 billion to a couple who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after years of using the company’s weedkiller, Roundup. The verdict—which mandates a payment of $2 billion in punitive damages and a further $55 million in compensatory damages—was delivered on Monday (May 13) and marks the third and ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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