Livermore Man Diagnosed With Stage IV Lymphoma After Decades of Roundup Use Holds a $30.7 Million Judgment

Alva Pilliod did most of the spraying. From 1982, when he and his wife Alberta first bought Roundup for their home in Livermore, California, until 2011, he was the one who mixed the concentrate with water in a sprayer and worked it across the yard, about a gallon a week for nine months of the year, and across three other properties the couple owned over the years. He was careful about the sun, so he wore long pants, long sleeves and tennis shoes, but not gloves or a mask, because nothing on the label suggested he needed them. Monsanto's advertising showed Roundup being sprayed by ordinary homeowners with no precautions, and the label said the product targeted an enzyme found in plants but not in people or pets.

In the months before his diagnosis Alva was in so much pain he could barely move. In June 2011, at 69, he was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, stage IV, an aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that had settled in his bones. He went through chemotherapy and reached remission by 2013, and the cancer had not returned by trial, but he never recovered the life he had before: he must be monitored for chemotherapy complications and for second lymphomas, and he could not resume many of his former activities. He stopped using Roundup in 2011 because he was too weak to handle it. Four years later Alberta was diagnosed with the same cancer.

The couple sued Monsanto in Alameda County Superior Court in 2017 for design defect and failure to warn. Judge Winifred Y. Smith denied Monsanto's motion to try the two claims separately, and the case went to a six-week jury trial in spring 2019. The Court of Appeal's opinion names plaintiffs' counsel as Michael J. Miller, Jeffrey A. Travers and Curtis G. Hoke of The Miller Firm, R. Brent Wisner and Pedram Esfandiary of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, and Mark E. Burton of Audet & Partners. Pathologist Dr. Dennis Weisenburger testified that of the recognized risk factors that applied to Alva, decades of Roundup exposure was by far the most significant and was a substantial factor in causing his lymphoma; Monsanto's expert countered that his cancer had no known cause and pointed to an abnormal immune system. The jury also heard evidence that Monsanto had known since the early 1980s of study data later relied on by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and that it had ghostwritten scientific articles presented as independent.

On May 13, 2019, the jury found for both plaintiffs on every claim and found malice. For Alva it awarded about $47,000 in stipulated past economic loss, $8 million in past noneconomic loss, $10 million in future noneconomic loss, and $1 billion in punitive damages. On Monsanto's post-trial motions, Judge Smith denied judgment notwithstanding the verdict, found clear and convincing evidence that Monsanto had worked to impede and distort scientific inquiry into glyphosate, and on July 26, 2019, held that the 54-to-1 ratio of punitive to compensatory damages was unconstitutional. She recalculated Alva's noneconomic damages on the trial evidence, applied a four-to-one ratio, and conditionally granted a new trial unless he accepted a judgment of $30,736,480, roughly $6.1 million compensatory and $24.6 million punitive. He accepted, reserving a cross-appeal.

The First District Court of Appeal, Division Two, affirmed on August 9, 2021, rejecting Monsanto's preemption, causation, instructional and attorney-misconduct arguments and the Pilliods' request to restore the larger awards. The California Supreme Court denied review on November 17, 2021, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Monsanto's certiorari petition (No. 21-1272) on June 27, 2022. Together with Alberta's judgment the Pilliods' award came to about $86.7 million, at the time the largest Roundup result to survive every level of appeal.