Compensation for punitive damages should not flow into plaintiff pockets. I read with concern in the report that Monsanto will be paying UDS250M in punitive damages but only $39M in actual "compensatory damages and other costs". Punitive damages should accrue to society and should the plaintiff request for punitive damages to be paid, then the plaintiff (/ assisting voluntary welfare organisation etc) should also make a statement of case warranting the penalty: i.e. documenting the currently unfair practise corporates and how such funds will be used to assist and protect victims against such forms of corporate violence etc. Plaintiff victims of corporate misdeeds should only receive the compensatory damage portion of claims which should accurately compensate for any relevant damage they suffered, society and its protective voluntary welfare organizations (VWOs) shouldn't be short changed of funds arising from such 'punitive damages ' just as speeding ticket summons accrue funds to the state towards providing for necessary social goods. VWOs should be invited to submit requests for punitive damages should the defendent lose but any request will be scrutinized by the courts and society at large for its purpose and reasonableness in the light of the egregiousness of the offending corporate misconduct. Usually, such corporates when found guilty of such harmful and egregious misconduct, have cause damage to multitudes of other victims besides just the plaintiff who sued. By channeling the necessary funds towards VWOs, more members of society can be helped and society will be stronger and more robust for that. ======= Monsanto Ordered to Pay $289 Million in World's First Roundup Cancer Trial More FILE PHOTO: Monsanto Co's Roundup is shown for sale in Encinitas, California, U.S., June 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File PhotoREUTERS BY TINA BELLON (Reuters) - A California jury on Friday found Monsanto liable in a lawsuit filed by a man who alleged the company's glyphosate-based weed-killers, including Roundup, caused his cancer and ordered the company to pay $289 million in damages. The case of school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson was the first lawsuit to go to trial alleging glyphosate causes cancer. Monsanto, a unit of Bayer AG following a $62.5 billion acquisition by the German conglomerate, faces more than 5,000 similar lawsuits across the United States. The jury at San Francisco's Superior Court of California deliberated for three days before finding that Monsanto had failed to warn Johnson and other consumers of the cancer risks posed by its weed killers. It awarded $39 million in compensatory and $250 million in punitive damages. Monsanto in a statement said it would appeal the verdict. "Today’s decision does not change the fact that more than 800 scientific studies and reviews...support the fact that glyphosate does not cause cancer, and did not cause Mr. Johnson’s cancer," the company said. Monsanto denies that glyphosate, the world's most widely used herbicide, causes cancer and says decades of scientific studies have shown the chemical to be safe for human use. Johnson's case, filed in 2016, was fast-tracked for trial due to the severity of his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system that he alleges was caused by Roundup and Ranger Pro, another Monsanto glyphosate herbicide. Johnson's doctors said he is unlikely to live past 2020. A former pest control manager for a California county school system, Johnson, 46, applied the weed killer up to 30 times per year. Brent Wisner, a lawyer for Johnson, in a statement said jurors for the first time had seen internal company documents "proving that Monsanto has known for decades that glyphosate and specifically Roundup could cause cancer." He called on Monsanto to "put consumer safety first over profits." Over the course of the four-week trial, jurors heard testimony by statisticians, doctors, public health researchers and epidemiologists who disagreed on whether glyphosate can cause cancer. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in September 2017 concluded a decades-long assessment of glyphosate risks and found the chemical not likely carcinogenic to humans. But the World Health Organization's cancer arm in 2015 classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans." (Reporting by Tina Bellon; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) Copyright 2018 Thomson Reuters https://www.usnews.com/news/top-new...90-million-in-california-roundup-cancer-trial
I can't help but think there really needs to be some sort of better decision-making process to deal with these types of issues, rather than the standard lawsuit process.
I have been saying this for a long time. That if punitive damages exist, they should be paid to a non-profit, or the U.S. Treasury for all I care, but never to the plaintiff. It would completely take care of frivolous lawsuits. The plaintiff could sue on a matter of principle if they desire, and if they present enough evidence of wrongdoing by a corporation, the corporation would pay the damages to an organization (and pay the plaintiff's legal bills of course).
Golly, liberals lining up disputing the "settled science".... Who would have ever thunk it possible...
San Francisco Juries won't find an illegal alien that is proven to have killed a young woman Guilty, but will hand 39 million to a black who claims the reason he got cancer was not due to any careless act on his part, but the fault of some corporation. Millions by this time would have cancer if using Round up caused cancer. Was he bathing in the chemical?
My husband said pretty much the same; that he knows farmers who have been using Round Up for years and never got cancer. I don't know.
I saw this locally on my TV news and all I could think of was, was this guy dumping that stuff into his bath tub and bathing in it? Monsanto is a huge bulls eye for all sort of crazy claims. The case will be taken to a higher court by Monsanto.
As defined by IARC, other class 2A "possible carcinogens" (the same as glyphosate) are red meat, fry cooking, campfire smoke, being a hairdresser, hot beverages and working the night shift. Tanning beds and alcohol, of course, are class 1, definite carcinogens. Let the lawsuits commence. I don't see a cancer warning on that beer bottle, so they're deliberately misleading me.
Er, everyone, my point here is about the social/moral value of 'punitive damages'... I'm not disputing if they are valid, what I am concerned with is that the plaintiffs I think is getting to keep too much $$$ and short changing society if (the plaintiff) were to use the 'punitive damages' for some other purpose unrelated to preventing further victimisation of innocents by the offending company or to compensate those who were harmed previously but never had the finances or courage to sue for damages caused. 'Punitive damages' in my mind, should help the company redeem itself and remedy as far as possible, the damage to society caused.
I agree. Punititve damages need a higher standard of evidence closer to criminal and also should be paid tiward the national debt. The plaintiff should only collect real damages.
NOT national debt otherwise the govt will interfere and prejudice the legal process. It should compensate current and future victims vz either a related foundation of some sort or a charity that helps the silent victims recover from their loss. If there are no other victims or the tort is a rare instance with no systematic malice nor negligence involved, then there are no silent victims, no charity / foundation to speak about the cause and therefore no punitive damages to discuss.
