CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Greg Dovel delivering his opening statement
Clayton, MO - A Missouri state court jury heard opening statements Tuesday in the first trial over alleged cancer risks from Bayer-owned Monsanto’s popular Roundup weedkiller which could preview how similar cases will play out after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision scuttled thousands of related claims earlier this year, and the full trial is being webcast gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
The sprawling Roundup docket, and the products liability landscape more broadly, was upended earlier this year when the Supreme Court overturned a $1.25 million verdict awarded to plaintiff John Durnell in Missouri state court in 2023. The high court’s majority determined the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts state law failure-to-warn claims, which often played a key role in lawsuits claiming exposure to the chemical glyphosate in herbicides like Roundup supposedly causes cancer.
The trial playing out in Judge Brian May’s St. Louis County courtroom involves three plaintiffs bringing design defect claims against Monsanto, which plaintiff attorneys argue unlike state court failure-to-warn claims were not pre-empted by Durnell. Plaintiffs Theresa Aretino, Cynthia Fernandez and Betty Larkin also declined to participate in a proposed $7.25 billion class-action settlement that would resolve nearly all 65,000 pending Roundup claims.
CVN’s gavel-go-gavel coverage will include both live and on-demand access to the proceedings, along with time-synced images of exhibits and demonstratives shown in the courtroom. Please email CVN for various subscription options ranging from access for one individual up to firm-wide institutional accounts for multiple viewers.
During Tuesday’s opening statements, plaintiff attorney Greg Dovel of Dovel & Luner presented substantially different arguments than plaintiff attorneys in prior Roundup trials (many also recorded by CVN), with much more focus given to the underlying design and testing of glyphosate, the primary chemical Roundup is based on.
Dovel argued the basic design of the chemical compound should have raised red flags about possible health risks, but he accused Monsanto of skipping that process.
"Monsanto did not adequately test Roundup," Dovel told the jury, according to CVN’s webcast of the proceedings. “To this day, they’ve never done all the testing they've needed to do."
Addressing an issue that will be central to the trial, Dovel urged jurors to set aside the EPA finding that underpinned the Durnell ruling, arguing the agency’s determination glyphosate is safe and doesn't require cancer warning labels was based on incomplete and out-of-date science.
"EPA approval of Roundup doesn’t mean that it is safe," Dovel insisted.
Defense attorney Paul Boehm of Sidley Austin urged jurors to do the opposite, suggesting the EPA’s findings were backed up by decades of safety reviews and affirmed by other regulatory bodies around the world.
Boehm argued those findings alone undercut the current design defect claims, since it would have been impossible for a supposedly defectively designed and dangerous chemical to withstand such sustained scrutiny from regulators and not be pulled from the market.
CVN screenshot of defense attorney Paul Boehm delivering his opening statement
The jury’s verdict will likely not be the final word on how or even if Roundup and glyphosate lawsuits can proceed after the Durnell ruling. Monsanto maintains the current design-defect claims are also pre-empted under the ruling, with any eventual verdict guaranteed for appellate review in both state and federal court.
In the meantime, many eyes in the product liability and mass tort world will be on Judge May’s courtroom, where the trial is slated to take roughly four to five weeks to complete. CVN’s live and on-demand gavel-to-gavel coverage will continue for the duration of the proceedings.
The case is captioned Theresa Aretino, et al. v. Monsanto Company, case number 20SL-CC03676 in Missouri’s 21st Judicial Circuit.
Email David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com
