A suit was removed on Monday from the District Court of Nueces County, Texas by plaintiff John Luby Jr. against defendant Naylor’s Farm & Ranch Supply, Inc. The complaint alleges that the defendant engaged in negligent and wrongful conduct when they used the Monsanto Company’s product Roundup, which purportedly caused the plaintiff to develop non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Monsanto has been at the center of litigation in recent years in connection with Roundup.
Roundup was developed by the Monsanto Company in the 1970s and is described in the complaint as a “non-selective herbicide used to kill weeds that commonly compete with the growing of crops.” Due to Roundup’s popularity, one of its ingredients, glyphosate, became the world’s most widely used herbicide. The complaint notes that glyphosate has been found in the waters surrounding agricultural areas, in the urine of agricultural workers, and more.
In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (part of the World Health Organization) issued an evaluation on glyphosate which concluded that it was probably carcinogenic to humans. The most common cancers associated with glyphosate are non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other hematopoietic cancers.
Because of the harmful properties glyphosate carries, it is now regulated under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). FIFRA requires all distributions of glyphosate to be registered with the Environmental Protection Agency through testing. The EPA does not determine if the product is safe, but rather that it “will not generally cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.”
After classifying glyphosate as a possible carcinogen, Monsanto provided evidence to the EPA that resulted in glyphosate getting reclassed to evidence of non-carcinogenicity in humans. It was later found that “the laboratories hired by Monsanto to test the toxicity of its Roundup products for registration purposes committed fraud.”
Since glyphosate is so widely used, the complaint asserts that “community exposure to glyphosate is widespread and found in soil, air, surface water, and groundwater, as well as in food.” The plaintiff argues that Roundup is defective and unreasonably dangerous to consumers like himself since it does not contain adequate warnings regarding the risks it poses. He adds that the risks, like the potential to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, were not disclosed “despite the fact that Defendant knew or should have known that Roundup posed a grave risk of harm.”
The complaint cites failure to warn, negligence, and breach of implied and express warranty. The plaintiff is seeking medical expenses, lost earnings, other actual damages, a trial by jury, pre- and post-judgment interest, litigation fees, and any other relief the Court determines the plaintiff to be entitled to.
The plaintiff is represented by Butch Boyd Law Firm, while the Monsanto Company is represented by Shook, Hardy & Bacon.
