Last week, an amici curiae brief was filed by 93 law firms and 167 lawyers opposing the proposed settlement of future claims that would be brought against the widely used weedkiller Roundup.
The brief has now been joined by the National Trial Lawyers (NTL) President, individually and on behalf of the organization’s approximately 14,000 members. The NTL president who was also the past President of the American Association for Justice filed the Joinder in Opposition brief in federal court in San Francisco on Monday.
The organization agreed with the brief that the proposed settlement would endanger access to justice for millions of people in the proposed class and would prevent them from holding the company liable.
Bayer announced the proposed settlement in a press release, stating that the company has set aside $2 billion to resolve future legal claims. According to the plan, Monsanto’s parent company will be paying $2 billion over a period of four-years to cover outreach and diagnostic assistance of individuals who have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and were exposed to Roundup prior to their diagnosis.
Recently, this week, an organizer for the activist group Migrant Justice stated that in the $2 billion settlement deal there is a major exclusionary factor that makes it difficult for migrant farmworkers in Vermont to receive any kind of compensation.
The settlement, if happened, will put a stay on the litigation for four years and would dissolve all class members’ claims for punitive damages and medical monitoring. Thereby a secret science panel would be formed to determine if members agree with all three juries to hear the evidence that the weedkiller causes cancer.
