We were
among the millions of citizens who felt a surge of optimism that justice might
actually prevail on Aug. 10 when a San Francisco Superior Court jury awarded a
historic $289 million verdict against the agrochemical conglomerate Monsanto.
On
Wednesday, we learned that a California judge is considering taking away that
jury award for punitive damages.
When we
learned that Dewayne “Lee” Johnson had taken Monsanto to court saying he got
his terminal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma from on-the-job exposure to Monsanto’s
ubiquitous weed killer, Roundup, we were so captured by Johnson’s battle that
we traveled to San Francisco to watch the trial. Would democracy finally
prevail? Or would Monsanto again find a way to subvert the justice system?
Johnson’s
was the first of some 4,000 similar claims headed for courts across America.
Initially,
we were discouraged because the judge appeared to be bending over backward to
help Monsanto. California Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos carefully
screened the jury pool to exclude all individuals who had been exposed to
negative articles about Monsanto, or who had shown the least disapproval of the
company. She unseated 35 jurors in all, including many who said that they could
be fair and impartial. The 12 who issued the verdict were those who showed no
predisposition against Monsanto.
During
trial, Judge Bolanos consistently sided with Monsanto on the company’s
evidentiary objections. At Monsanto’s request, Judge Bolanos deemed any mention
of Monsanto’s genetically modified crops off-limits during the trial. Judge
Bolanos forbade Johnson’s lawyer from showing the jury Monsanto’s internal
studies showing that Roundup caused kidney tumors in mice; that the chemical
easily penetrates the body through the skin; and that Monsanto had a flimflam
system in place for killing unfavorable scientific studies by independent and
government scientists. Judge Bolanos even gave a “curative instruction” telling
the jury that Monsanto had never manufactured Agent Orange. That statement was simply
not true — however the judge deemed the instruction necessary to neutralize
potential bias from statements made about Agent Orange by dismissed jurors in
front of their fellow jurymen.
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