The U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, presiding over all Roundup lawsuits, agreed to push back several deadlines in the litigation and vacated a trial set to begin later this month as Ken Feinberg, the court-appointed mediator, is working with Bayer and plaintiffs lawyers to settle the lawsuits.
According to a pretrial order published last week, Judge Chhabria agreed to extend all Roundup lawsuit deadlines by 35 days, at the request of the settlement master. Also, as per a separate order issued, the Court announced that a second bellwether trial scheduled for March 25 would not proceed. Judge Chhabria did not set a new date for the trial and indicated that no further extensions would be granted for the deadlines for bellwether claims.
More than half a dozen state court cases, filed by users of the controversial weedkiller who have developed non-Hodgkins lymphoma, were already postponed during the settlement discussions.
Currently, Bayer is facing tens of thousands of product liability lawsuits brought by individuals claiming that cancer risk information over Roundup was withheld from consumers for decades.
