The latest transfer involves six lawsuits filed against Monsanto Co. in Louisiana and Missouri federal courts, with plaintiffs including Willis, Cora, Montalva, Hagenberg, Tinney, and Lowery. The cases join the sprawling multidistrict litigation over allegations that Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, which has been consolidated in the Northern District of California since October 2016.
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation found that the new cases "involve questions of fact that are common to the actions previously transferred to the Northern District of California and assigned to Judge Chhabria." The panel relied on its original October 2016 transfer order, which established the MDL to streamline pretrial proceedings for what has become one of the largest product liability litigations in federal court.
The conditional transfer order gives parties seven days to file opposition before it becomes effective. Since the MDL's creation with an initial 19 cases, it has grown to encompass thousands of lawsuits from plaintiffs claiming Roundup caused their non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and other cancers.
The continued growth of the Roundup MDL reflects ongoing litigation against Monsanto, now owned by Bayer AG, despite previous jury verdicts and settlements totaling over $10 billion. The consolidation allows for coordinated discovery and potentially streamlined resolution of common legal and factual issues across the thousands of pending cases.