The sanction is once again very heavy for the Monsanto group. The subsidiary of the German giant Bayer was ordered on Monday in the United States to pay $857 million in damages to student and parent volunteers at a school exposed to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), so-called “eternal” pollutants.
Monsanto has indicated its willingness to appeal the decision, as it has done in other cases relating to the same school, Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington.
The school regularly alerted, according to Monsanto
Five former students and two former parents of students filed a lawsuit in King County, a jurisdiction that includes Seattle, claiming that their exposure to PCBs contained in lighting caused them health problems. Several decisions have already been rendered concerning other teachers, students and parents of the same school, with several hundred million dollars in compensation at stake.
Monsanto has, on several occasions, recalled having ceased the production of these PCBs, intended to prevent the risk of fire, since 1977, that is to say before their ban by the American government, in 1979. During the trial, it had highlighted the fact that the school authorities had been regularly alerted, since the 1990s, of the need to replace the lighting.
Previous convictions linked to Roundup
The group “never warned anyone that (the PCBs) would last longer than the facilities in which they were installed,” said Felix Luna, lawyer for the seven plaintiffs, during his argument at trial. “They never warned that when they enter the body, they stay there for life, that they are neurotoxic, (…) a danger,” he continued.
The agrochemical group faces other legal actions linked to the effects of PCB. In his reaction to the judgment, he recalled having already been exonerated in several cases. Bought in 2018 by Bayer for $63 billion, the company has also been ordered several times to compensate people who were in contact with the controversial weedkiller Roundup, based on glyphosate.