Mass tort lien resolution is very complex. We know that these developments and the standstill on your settlement money is frustrating. In other news, there is an accumulation of evidence that Roundup may cause other types of cancer and injuries. }} Clearly, Bayer knows of the risk of Roundup and it is making, we think, a very cold-blooded calculus that the lawsuits will be cheaper than the cost of giving up such a lucrative product. Importantly, $250 million of that award was punitive damages. Me included. Bayer, which inherited the litigation when it bought Monsanto for $63 billion, has repeatedly maintained that Roundup is safe. Federal law requires that all Medicare, Medicaid, and Military payments made to any medical provider on your behalf that relate to your use of Roundup, subsequent injury, and relevant treatment and care be identified, negotiated and reimbursed to your health plan. The idea, in a nutshell, is that federal law prevents any state court claims. "name": "What Is the Average Settlement Payout for the Roundup Lawsuit? I also understand that Miller & Zois works with multiple law firms on these claims and that I may be contacted by an affiliated law firm working with Miller & Zois on these lawsuits. January 2023 Roundup Lawsuit Update Roundup Update January 21, 2023 A woman filed a Roundup lawsuit and was expecting to get around $120,000 in settlement compensation. Several cities and districts around the world have banned or restricted glyphosate use, and some stores have pulled the product off its shelf. A jury trial in Ms. Stephens case began in August 2021 in San Bernardino County Superior Court (venue change was necessary to accommodate the expedited trial request). It is believed that Bayer is still planning to settle most of these cases and just working toward that. In some instances, however, Bayer has been taking certain cases to trial in state courts. Aimed to help Insurers prevent, prepare and prevail In adjudicating complex claims, negotiating settlements and winning cases. Most of the other Roundup settlements that have been resolved are still waiting for their claims to be finalized (yes, this takes way too long). In 2016, after the federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated early Roundup suits, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco appointed Robin Greenwald of Weitz & Luxenberg, Michael Miller of the Miller Firm and Aimee Wagstaff of Andrus Wagstaff to lead the case. Our Team Account subscription service is for legal teams of four or more attorneys. Below are answers to FAQS: The Lien Administrator (Archer) is in the process of determining how much (if any) of the money held back from your first payment is required under Federal Law to be paid back to Medicare/Medicaid. The Settlement Administrator and Special Master are currently reviewing EIF Applications and making eligibility determinations. No. We know you want your settlement money now, but the law prevents us from dispersing any further funds to Medicare-eligible claimants who have a potential Medicare lien without resolution of these issues. David Stephens testified that his mother used Roundup in the yard all the time throughout his childhood and adulthood and often sprayed the product with shorts and no sleeves. We vouch for our advice to our clients but we don't vouch for the accuracy of this website. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. Please see our Privacy Policy. For many reasons, that is just a bad idea. Bayers Roundup lawyers are, I suspect, reaching for straws because they do not like the merits of their case. Lanier apologized for the oversight but said those cases werent in his inventory of 1,180 lawsuits he was already deeply into settlement talks over. ARHER was selected for its expertise and experience in handling specialized administrative functions, including health insurance lien resolutionwhich isrequired in large mass tort settlement programs such as Roundup. We do not know when those cases will be settled. Following a COVID delay, the trial in the case of plaintiff Donnetta Stephens has now converted to a virtual proceeding, making it one of the first trials by zoom in U.S. history. This week, Donna Farmer testified. (This is an office building phone number. It found that Roundup use caused a 36% increase in the rate of thyroid cancer. More than a dozen law firms had objected to the fee request, with one of them calling the request a money grab by lead counsel in the multidistrict litigation. Stephens fought back tears as he recalled the day when his mother told the family that she had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Jurors are humans. After Bayer purchased Monsanto, Bayer grabbed the torch of defending the safety of the produce. A few months ago, the 9th Circuit ruled that a Roundup plaintiffs failure-to-warn claim was fully consistent with FIFRA. The Miller firm fired back, in the process revealing how the business of mass-tort litigation is actually practiced, with numerous law firms investing millions of dollars in advertising to recruit clients that they then funnel up to the lead law firms. So the settlement amounts were based on certain benchmarks. In the legal profession, information is the key to success. Bayer announced Wednesday that it would separately spend up to $400 million to settle claims stemming from another Monsanto chemical, dicamba, that can drift after it is sprayed and damage other crops. It is an organophosphorus compound, more precisely a phosphonate, that works by blocking the plant enzyme 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase. Recognizing innovation in the legal technology sector for working on precedent-setting, game-changing projects and initiatives. He regularly used Roundup as part of his job while employed at the Ohio Department of Transportation facility in Washington Courthouse, Ohio from 2001 to 2011. EIF UPDATE: We are hoping to be able to make EIF payments for those clients that qualify in the first quarter of 2023. For a free evaluation of a possible cancer case involving Roundup, call Kline & Specter at 215-772-1000 or contact us online. by Ronald V. Miller, Jr. Last week, Weitz & Luxenberg, Miller and Andrus Wagstaff defended their holdback requests in a reply brief to Judge Chhabria, arguing that just about every plaintiff who has reached a deal with Bayer has them to thank for it. Those Medicare lien obligations will be resolved and reconciled by Medicare under a Global Resolution Model which covers treatment diagnosis care as well as follow up care. The trial, as we discuss below, had to be held entirely by Zoom video conferencing (one of the first-ever Zoom trials) because of continuing COVID restrictions in California. Bernstein Liebhard based their estimates on an inaccurate news article citing an unidentified claimant who leaked information about the settlement, Miller said. These claims are still being reviewed by an outside company and then will be further reviewed by the Special Master. There are almost 4,000 lawsuits still pending in the Roundup MDL class action in California as of March 2022. Bayer may change their settlement compensation projections after getting a win. When Bayer, the giant German chemical and pharmaceutical maker, acquired Monsanto two years ago, the company knew it was also buying the worlds best-known weedkiller. She came to law as a second career after spending ten years overseeing federal grants for high-poverty school districts. Fourteen years or thirty years? "@context": "https://schema.org", So, yes, any loss is a tough loss and it is hard not to feel for Ms. Stephens. Please do not include any confidential or sensitive information in a contact form, text message, or voicemail. But long-simmering anxieties over possible hazards exploded in 2015 when the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, announced that glyphosate could probably cause cancer. You can also reach out to us online. Will Medicare deny my future NHL-related treatment as a result of receiving this settlement? Lanier joined an objection by plaintiff lawyers with state-court cases in Missouri and Texas, saying Judge Chhabria had no jurisdiction over them and couldnt force them to comply with a common-benefit order. You have to know whats happening with clients, competitors, practice areas, and industries. Compounding the complexity is the fact that Medicare, Medicaid agencies, private insurers/their recovery agents, and other government agencies such as the VA are facing an unprecedented volume of mass tort claims and continue to deal with staffing issues and resource shortages, which is lengthening the time it takes to resolve liens. Don't miss the crucial news and insights you need to make informed legal decisions. More importantly in the big scheme of things, it is hard to put much stock in a trial conducted online. Still, the law firm representing her in the case refused to cut her a check after learning that she was not a legal U.S. citizen. I have a Bankruptcy Hold on my payment. And, as briefing on the common benefit fund demonstrates, MDL litigation strategy involves a discomfiting amount of gamesmanship over eventual fees for plaintiffs lawyers. About the firm . Lanier was forced to backpedal a bit, however, after lead lawyers told the judge he was trial counsel in two cases in Missouri state court along with a firm leading discovery efforts in the MDL. That has not happened yet and there is no deadline so this could drag through the end of the year. Latest Roundup Lawsuit Update If you have come for the latest Bayer Roundup news, this page was revised with a new litigation and settlement Roundup lawsuit update on January 21, 2023. Our law firm is taking new Roundup cases. Regardless of when the trial eventually concludes, it seems pretty obvious that the losing side is going to have a pretty good argument on appeal based on the interruptions and glitches. Home Roundup Settlement. They responded to more than a dozen. Wrongful death cases were worth more as are cases where there were not statute of limitations complications. "acceptedAnswer": { Its supposed to be up to other plaintiffs lawyers to compensate lead counsel for doing the work that benefited all Roundup clients who relied on MDL work product. The trial remained in limbo until the Judge announced that it would resume on Monday of the following week, but in a virtual format. If you signed up for the Private Lien Resolution Program, Archer is also working on determining how much will need to be paid to your private insurer. But some of the firms that opposed the leaders holdback request argued that if there was a settlement premium, thats adequate compensation for whatever common benefit the MDL leaders provided. Already a subscriber? Now, Bayer new strategy is to go to war and take cases to trial. But I'm most interested in one of the issues that Judge Chhabria himself raised in a Jan. 26 order addressing the holdback request: If Bayer paid MDL lead counsel a premium to settle their Roundup cases, is a holdback still warranted? The deal, announced Wednesday, is among the largest settlements ever in U.S. civil litigation. Now the once-hypothetical common benefit fund has turned into a real, $800 million headache for Judge Chhabria. Jurors had difficulty turning their cameras on for the Zoom call (which was required by the judge). In January 2015, several years after his occupational Roundup exposure, Wyatt was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Three New Mass Torts Emerge in Philadelphia's Complex Litigation Docket, as . We do not know when those cases will be settled. (The settlement included unfiled claims; Bayer did not admit liability or wrongdoing.). A few months later, Judge Chhabria signed a pre-trial order approving a common benefit fund to assure that lead counsel received some compensation from every plaintiff or plaintiffs' lawyer who relied on their work to reach a settlement with Monsanto. I also understand that Miller & Zois works with multiple law firms on these claims and that I may be contacted by an affiliated law firm working with Miller & Zois on these lawsuits. For one thing, they said, Bayer has insisted on confidentiality over settlement amounts, so pretty much no one even knows if lead counsels clients received a premium over the average settlement to Roundup plaintiffs. This case, and I predicted it in the last line of this original post, is ripe for appeal. Part of the $1.25 billion will be used to establish an independent expert panel to resolve two critical questions about glyphosate: Does it cause cancer, and if so, what is the minimum dosage or exposure level that is dangerous? Its researchers judged the chemical probably carcinogenic to humans, and added it to a list that already included beef, pork, mobile phone use, dry cleaning and working night shifts. Roundup Cancer Lawsuits Monsanto has settled over 100,000 Roundup lawsuits, paying out about $11 billion as of May 2022. Any second payment will, therefore, consist of the difference between your lien holdback and the final lien amount. "The simple fact remains that all Roundup attorneys and plaintiffs have benefitted from MDL leaderships efforts," lead counsel wrote in a Thursday filing. The Newsletter Bringing the Legal System to Light. The old Roundup lawsuits will settle and people should get their money in 2023 if they have not already. The Miller Firm Roundup Settlement ROUNDUP UPDATE - November 28, 2022 EIF UPDATE: We are hoping to be able to make EIF payments for those clients that qualify in the first quarter of 2023. Medicare has refused to provide a timeline for their decision despite repeated demands that they provide an expected timeframe. Glyphosate works by disrupting a crucial metabolic process in plants known as the shikimate acid pathway. Gain access to some of the most knowledgeable and experienced attorneys with our 2 bundle options! Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C. While no specifics on theirrecommendation or a timetable has been revealed, we remain cautiously optimistic that the DOJs decision will be forthcoming over the next several weeks, as opposed to many more months. Not today. Next herbicide up for a class action lawsuit: Amount of Roundup exposure (groundskeepers and gardeners would, for example, see higher settlement amounts). The agreements would resolve more than 100,000 Roundup lawsuits for roughly $11 billion. By mid-afternoon, the judge called it a day and told the jurors to leave their computers on.. Copyright 2023 ALM Global, LLC. Even if you do not have any outstanding medical bills, the obligation to report to these agencies and plans still exists. This is what is holding up the determination of second payments, where applicable. The question is whether glyphosate causes these cancers, however it does that. Phone: 540-672-4224 We will let you know when/if you are entitled to a payment and if so how much. It had taken aim at hundreds of activists, scientists, journalists, politicians and even musicians. The lead attorneys also say its unfair to accuse them of double-dipping since they invested heavily in the Roundup litigation when other law firms took a pass because of the weak scientific evidence glyphosate causes cancer. The average settlement payout ranges from $125,000 to $175,000 depending on what deal individual lawyers negotiated. It would be unprecedented, the MDL leaders argued, to preclude common benefit fund fees to them because they were able to obtain premium settlements for their clients. During this time, Jamie always dreamed of returning to law school. 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