Last Friday, multiple plaintiffs who filed lawsuits against Bayer and Monsanto, alleging Roundup caused them harm, filed oppositions to motions from the defendants to exclude certain expert witnesses. Over 20 of these oppositions were filed on Friday, along with some oppositions to the defendants’ motion for summary judgment.
The motions filed by Monsanto challenging the expert testimonies, many of which were filed in mid-March, alleged that the doctors ignored other possible risk factors of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and considered flawed studies.
One of the oppositions addressing the request to exclude Dr. Dennis Weisenburger’s testimony claimed that his opinions are reliable and that he did consider other risk factors. They said he “has more than 40 years of experience and is a highly qualified physician and hematopathologist.” The opposition further cited other disputes over experts already considered in the consolidated matter and the court’s decisions that the plaintiffs’ experts had accurately determined that Roundup caused Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in other plaintiffs.
Arguments against another of Monsanto’s motions asking to exclude testimony of Dr. Charles Benbrook, Dr. Charles Jameson, and Mr. Stephen Petty claimed that the court had already ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor to allow their testimony and cited a pre-trial order which asked for issues to not be litigated. Other plaintiffs’ arguments against excluding Dr. Barry Boyd’s testimony purported that the defendant was rehashing arguments that had previously failed before the court.
A joint response filed by multiple plaintiffs in response to each of the defendant’s motions to exclude testimony claimed that there is not a legal requirement that a doctor should “scour the world and investigate every conceivable alternative potential cause of a Plaintiffs’ (non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma) in order for their opinions to be admissible.”
In addition to these oppositions, some of the plaintiffs filed a motion to exclude the testimony of 17 of Monsanto’s case-specific experts on Friday, arguing that they had not had the ability to depose or examine the experts and so, they could not prepare for the experts’ testimonies.
The plaintiffs are represented by various counsel, however, many of the plaintiffs involved in these filings were represented by Moll Law Group and Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles P.C.. Monsanto is represented by Wilkinson Stekloff LLP, Hollingsworth LLP, Covington & Burling LLP, and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP.
