Ari Friedman

Alberta Pilliod, a retired teacher and school administrator from Livermore, sprayed Roundup on the couple's properties for nearly 30 years and was diagnosed in April 2015 with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in her central nervous system, which recurred in her brain in 2016. On May 13, 2019, an Alameda County jury awarded her about $37.2 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages, alongside a separate award to her husband. Judge Winifred Smith reduced her judgment to $56,005,830, the Court of Appeal affirmed in August 2021, and the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court both declined to disturb it.

Alva Pilliod mixed and sprayed Roundup on the family's Livermore-area properties from 1982 until illness stopped him in 2011, the year he was diagnosed at 69 with stage IV diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in his bones. On May 13, 2019, an Alameda County jury awarded him about $18 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages, alongside a separate award to his wife. Judge Winifred Smith reduced his judgment to $30,736,480, the Court of Appeal affirmed in August 2021, and the California and U.S. Supreme Courts declined review.

Dewayne "Lee" Johnson sprayed Monsanto's Ranger Pro and Roundup Pro on Benicia school grounds for two to three years, was soaked by a burst hose in 2014, and was diagnosed that October with mycosis fungoides, a rare non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In August 2018 a San Francisco jury found Monsanto liable for failure to warn and design defect and returned $289.25 million, the first Roundup cancer verdict in the country. The trial judge cut punitive damages to match compensatory damages, for $78.5 million, and the Court of Appeal in July 2020 reduced the award to $20.5 million while affirming liability and malice. The California Supreme Court denied review in October 2020 and Bayer paid the judgment late that year.

Stewart Dolin, a 57-year-old Reed Smith partner, was prescribed Paxil for anxiety in July 2010, had the prescription filled with generic paroxetine, and six days later stepped in front of a CTA train in downtown Chicago. His widow Wendy Dolin sued GlaxoSmithKline, which controlled the paroxetine label, for failing to warn of an adult suicide risk. After a five-week federal trial a Chicago jury awarded $3 million on April 20, 2017. The Seventh Circuit reversed in August 2018, holding the claim preempted because the FDA had rejected an adult-suicidality warning in 2007, and the Supreme Court denied review in 2019.