0 + Billion Lawsuit Victory against Bayer / Monsanto

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Day 618 Wed 1/25/23 Glyphosate: Legal Success: USD $10 + Billion Lawsuit Victory against Bayer / Monsanto

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--- Humanity Rising Day 618 - Wednesday January 25, 2023      (GoTo Bottom)
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Bayer/Monsanto lost a landmark cancer trial in San Francisco and was ordered to pay over USD 289 Million (reduced on appeal to USD 78 Million) in total damages to the former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, a California father who has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which was caused by Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup. This case led to one of the largest legal payouts in legal history as Bayer/Monsanto were forced to settle thousands of lawsuits for over $10 Billion. Dewayne Johnson and his lawyer Brent Wisner are here today to discuss their amazing journey.

Moderators:

  • Tom Eddington is an author, Executive Coach, Business Advisor, and Executive Producer of documentary films. He holds an M.S. in Organization Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania. As a scholar of Conscious Leadership, he is passionate about bringing more conscious leadership into the world which he does through his coaching and advisory work, film and media projects and Board positions. As CEO of Endangered.global he brings his commitment and experience to impacting climate change and biodiversity loss.

Panelists:

  • Michael L. Baum is a senior partner at the national plaintiff law firm Wisner Baum (formerly Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman) based in Los Angeles. For 29 years, Michael was the managing partner of Baum Hedlund until he turned over the reins to R. Brent Wisner at the beginning of 2023. Under Michael’s leadership, the firm won billions in consumer fraud and product liability cases against some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical and life sciences corporations, including Bayer Corp. (Monsanto), Eli Lilly, Forest Labs, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer, among many others. A sophisticated legal team, the firm has helped uncover harmful drug industry practices, chemical manufacturer misconduct and deceptive marketing schemes which have resulted in groundbreaking verdicts, major consumer safety advocacy and improved drug warning labels. The firm was one of the first law firms in the country to take on Roundup (glyphosate) weed killer cancer cases against Monsanto. Michael and his colleagues served on the trial teams for the first three Roundup trials against Monsanto (Bayer), resulting in $2.424 billion in jury verdicts for the plaintiffs. These trial victories paved the way for settlement resolutions in 2020 worth a combined $10.9 billion, a major milestone for Baum Hedlund and the culmination of more than four years of hard work and perseverance. During the litigation, his team obtained a trove of internal documents known as the Monsanto Papers, which they ensured were declassified and released to regulatory agencies, scientists, and the general public. With invitations from lawmakers in these countries, Michael traveled with his artner Brent Wisner, to the EU and Canada to brief regulators on the key evidence uncovered in the Monsanto litigation. His influence on public policy concerning Roundup led Politico to choose Michael as one of five "changemakers"; in the world making waves in pesticides policy.
  • Robert Howard was born in Philadelphia in 1958, the second of three sons of a glass bottle salesman father and artist mother. He spent his childhood playing in woods and a creek adjacent to the family home from which grew a lifelong passion for nature and science. Robert also had artistic talent that was encouraged by his middle and high school teachers. The dual interests resulted in a circuitous route studying art and science at two colleges until he decided to get a BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art and an MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Robert moved to San Francisco in 1984, living and making art in a succession of warehouse studios. He taught art at the University of California, Davis, the San Francisco Art Institute, and Louisiana State University, meanwhile exhibiting his work in group and one person gallery and museum exhibitions. In 1988 he received a Visual Artists Fellowship in Sculpture from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1987 Robert met the artist Mary Fitzgerald. Their twin daughters, Sean and Maeve, were born in 1995. Robert taught himself how to renovate old houses to support the growing family as he continued to make art in the garage of a house he and Mary renovated. Fast forward to 2018 when Robert was chosen to be juror in case of Dwayne Lee Johnson v Monsanto. On August 10, 2018 he and eleven fellow jurors returned a stunning, virtually unanimous, $289 million verdict in favor of Mr. Johnson, a school groundskeeper in California who blamed the Monsanto Company for the cancer he contracted after spraying the herbicide Roundup. A few weeks later, Robert wrote a letter to the presiding judge protesting her tentative ruling to toss the verdict. After four other jurors followed suit, sparking a second wave of global media coverage of the already closely watched case, the judge reversed her tentative ruling and upheld the verdict, although she reduced the award to $78 million. As the Johnson case was appealed, Robert continued to speak out. He was invited to guest blog two ensuing trials for GlyphosateGirl.com under the nom de plume “AOJ,” (which stands for Agent Orange Juice). In February of 2019 truthout.org published his criticism of the federal judge overseeing thousands of Roundup cases for his handling of the first bellwether trial in federal court. In May the Wall Street Journal published his response to their editorial that used Monsanto talking points verbatim. Robert has granted numerous interviews, including with the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, ABC 7 News in San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle, Courthouse News, the St. Louis Business Journal, Planet Waves (radio), lavaca.org in Argentina, and WirstschaftsWoche and Handelsblatt in Germany. In a Law360.com interview he reluctantly accepted the label of “activist,” having preferred “former juror.”
  • Kelly Ryerson works at the intersection of agriculture, nutrition and health. She started the news site Glyphosate Facts, which explores and explains how our chemical agriculture system has led to an explosion in chronic disease. She collaborates with scientists, doctors, farmers and companies to better address agrochemical damage to our soil and bodies. Kelly has a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Co-convener:

  • Jim Garrison, President, Ubiquity University

75 Participants ---

To make a voluntary contribution to support the partner organizations and the Humanity Rising team, please see our contribution form.

Each Zoom live webinar will have a maximum capacity of 500 participants. If you are not able to join on Zoom, we will be live streaming here on the UbiVerse and on:

UU YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/UbiquityUniversity

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