Missouri Jury Awards $58.6 Million to Plant Worker Whose Lungs Were Damaged by Butter Flavoring Chemicals

James Graham worked at the General Mills food manufacturing plant in Hannibal, Missouri from August 2005 through February 2011. During those years, General Mills bought seventeen flavoring products from Givaudan Flavors Corporation that contained diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione, chemicals used to give foods a butter taste. Roughly 179,900 pounds of the relevant flavorings moved through the plant while Graham was there.

Breathing those chemicals cost Graham his health. He developed bronchiolitis obliterans, a permanent and progressive obstructive lung disease sometimes called popcorn lung because of its history among flavoring and microwave popcorn workers. By the time he left the plant in 2011 he had lost about a quarter of his lung capacity, and the disease kept advancing. His life care plan alone was valued at $1.4 million.

Graham sued Givaudan in the Circuit Court of Monroe County, alleging the company knew the risks its flavoring chemicals posed to workers and failed to warn adequately. Ben Fadler, Steven Ketchmark, and Griffin Albaugh of Ketchmark & McCreight tried the case for Graham before Judge Rachel Bringer Shepherd. Givaudan's defense pointed to Graham's roughly 25 years of smoking, argued the quantities of flavoring chemicals at the plant were too small to cause his disease, and disputed the science tying 2,3-pentanedione to lung injury. Graham's team answered with testimony from a pulmonologist experienced in diagnosing the disease, and with evidence of what Givaudan knew about workers sickened elsewhere. Missouri Lawyers Media reported the case as among the first plaintiff verdicts involving 2,3-pentanedione exposure.

The jury found for Graham and awarded $58,631,960: $2 million in compensatory damages and $56,631,960 in punitive damages. The court later reduced the compensatory award to about $1.53 million to credit Graham's settlements with other parties, leaving the punitive award untouched.

Givaudan appealed, raising twelve points that attacked the plaintiff's expert testimony, the admission of evidence about workers injured at other facilities, and the size of the punitive award. On April 7, 2026, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District affirmed the judgment in full. Chief Judge John P. Torbitzky wrote the unanimous opinion in case ED113318, joined by Judges James M. Dowd and Lisa P. Page. The court held that the trial court acted within its discretion on the evidentiary rulings, that the expert was qualified even without the label of flavor scientist, and that the punitive award was supported by evidence of conscious disregard for worker safety, including Givaudan's failure to report what it knew to OSHA.