Wagstaff Law Firm

A seven-month-old boy underwent open-heart surgery at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children in Denver in May 2019 to close a hole between the chambers of his heart. The surgeon mistakenly tied off the descending aorta, and for more than seven hours the perfusion team and the rest of the surgical team failed to recognize that the lower half of his body was not getting oxygenated blood. Dying tissue let a common mold, aspergillus, enter his bloodstream and seed in his brain, leaving him permanently brain damaged. After his parents settled with the hospital and the physicians, a Denver jury in July 2024 found the perfusion contractor Comprehensive Care Services vicariously liable for its two perfusionists and returned a $67,349,380.53 verdict. The trial court entered judgment for the full amount, and the company's appeal to the Colorado Court of Appeals was argued in June 2026.

Edwin Hardeman, 70, sprayed Roundup on his Sonoma County property for about 26 years and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2015. In the first federal Roundup bellwether trial, a unanimous San Francisco jury found in March 2019 that the herbicide was a substantial factor in his cancer and that Monsanto failed to warn, awarding $5,267,634 in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages. Judge Vince Chhabria cut the punitive award to $20 million as constitutionally excessive, leaving a $25,267,634 judgment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in May 2021 and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Monsanto's petition in June 2022.