(Reuters) -Bayer was ordered on Friday to pay $2.25 billion to a Pennsylvania man who said he developed cancer from exposure to the company's Roundup weedkiller, the man's attorneys said. A jury in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas found that John McKivision's non-Hodgkins lymphoma was the result of using Roundup for yard work at his house for a period of several years. The verdict includes $250 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages.

(Reuters) -Bayer was ordered on Friday to pay $2.25 billion to a Pennsylvania man who said he developed cancer from exposure to the company’s Roundup weedkiller, the man’s attorneys said.

A jury in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas found that John McKivision’s non-Hodgkins lymphoma was the result of using Roundup for yard work at his house for a period of several years. The verdict includes $250 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages.

“The jury’s punitive damages award sends a clear message that this multi-national corporation needs top to bottom change,” Tom Kline and Jason Itkin, McKivision’s attorneys, said in a joint statement.

  • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
    941·
    9 months ago

    These are the kind of financial hits these companies should be taking. Which means, as usual, this’ll get knocked down due a few hundred million tops in appeals.

    • Kusuriya@infosec.pub
      281·
      9 months ago

      well this is appeal 4 I think and its been swinging back and forth between Bayer owes shit and Bayer owes billions. Let’s not count any dollars until this guy starts collecting.

      Full transparency, Bayer is my employer, these thoughts and opinions are my own and do not reflect my employer, My bonus would look a lot better without this news, but the dude totally deserves to win because boy did Monsanto fuck him over.

    • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
      312·
      9 months ago

      That’s still crazy high for a single person. Imagine what this kind of penalty would to do an oil or tobacco company.

        • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
          35·
          9 months ago

          If ExxonMobil has this kind of penalty per person, they would have to pay $450 trillion dollars. Yes, they should go bankrupt, but this is literally 1000x their market cap.

          If Boeing has this kind of penalty per person, they would have to pay $600 billion for just one of the 737 Max crashes. Which would completely bankrupt the company, giving Airbus a monopoly.

          Yes, we do need larger penalties on corporations 99% of the time. It’s laughable how tech companies keep getting away with slaps on the wrist for grotesque privacy violations. But $2.25 billion for a single cancer case is a bridge too far. It should be somewhere around $2-15 million depending on the severity of the case, plus the people involved in the scandal should be fired.

          However, the penalty should double with each appeal. Maybe that’s how they got to $2.25 billion.

          • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            9 months ago

            If Boeing has this kind of penalty per person, they would have to pay $600 billion for just one of the 737 Max crashes. Which would completely bankrupt the company, giving Airbus a monopoly.

            if boeing cant be fucked to tighten bolts and have basic safety shit.

            Or worse, they make necessary safety shit a expensive optional extra (ala the boeing crashes a couple years ago where the planes would nose dive randomly)

            Then they deserve to go bankrupt.

            They don’t deserve to exist as an entity if they are killing people with carelessness and greed.

            Let some other group pick up the pieces in bankruptcy auctions.

  • lennybird@lemmy.worldEnglish
    363·
    9 months ago

    After dealing with Monsanto trolls who admitted to taking a paycheck from them as they disseminated pro-Monsanto rhetoric, this pleases me to no end.

    • negativeyoda@lemmy.world
      3·
      9 months ago

      Shit. My dad worked for Monsanto for decades on their environmental legal team (even worked with Clarence Thomas for a bit)

      I’ll talk no end of shit on them

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      9 months ago

      admitted

      That’s wild.

      It’s more likely they were weak and unfaithful to their unethical contract, vs. paid by a foreign state actor to stir division, right?

      Imagine admitting you’re such a joke! (Or poor + reckless (could get caught), etc.)

      • lennybird@lemmy.worldEnglish
        51·
        9 months ago

        They basically argued that because they work work with the products directly, that made their position on the issue superior, hence why they admitted it.

        They also said it wasn’t a conflict of interest, lmao.

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
    53·
    9 months ago

    I hate that shit. Who thinks it’s safe for the world to use a chemical herbicide? It’s just such a stupid idea.

    • UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      9 months ago

      Not that more evidence is required, but I when I was a kid were had this dog who would just have random – what seemed like – asthma attacks, while out on walks. They would go away if I picked him up, and we would continue on. Eventually, I noticed it only happened in certain spots, and that those spots all used some herbicide (because they would have the ads on the lawns).

      Anyway that cemented a deep disgust for that tech from a young age. Absolutely disgusting. All so you can try to get your lawn to resemble the most boring PS1-ass green polygon imaginable.