Philadelphia County Court
WASHINGTON - Pennsylvania figures prominently in a new study of the nation's biggest verdicts, thanks partly to jurors in Philadelphia asked to hear lawsuits over the weedkiller Roundup.
Though the federal appeals court in Philadelphia says there is no reason Roundup needs a cancer warning because of the ingredient glyphosate, Bayer and Monsanto got off to a rough start in state court cases in Pennsylvania.
Among three initial losses was a $2.2 billion to a plaintiff claiming glyphosate caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Though it was later reduced to $404 million, the verdict made its mark and helped land Philadelphia as the American Tort Reform Association's No. 1 Judicial Hellhole.
Marathon Strategies recently studied nuclear verdicts (more than $10 million) and what it is calling "thermonuclear" verdicts (more than $100 million) in 2024. Of 135 verdicts exceeding $10 million, 49 surpassed $100 million. There were only 27 of those thermonuclear verdicts in 2023.
"While many factors have influenced this growth, Marathon’s research identified corporate mistrust; social pessimism; erosion of tort reform; and public desensitization to large numbers as among the most important," the report says.
"Our research also found that verdicts are influenced by shifting jury pool demographics: in particular, the influx of Millennial and Gen Z jurors."
Totaling all nuclear verdicts, Pennsylvania jurors handed out $3.4 billion in 2024. That trailed Nevada ($8.4 billion) and California ($6.9 billion).
Pennsylvania had 12 nuclear verdicts in 2024. The Roundup verdict against Bayer was the fourth-largest in the country, and Bayer recently failed to reduce or strike a $175 million verdict.
The Superior Court on May 8 refused to change what jurors decided in that case. Bayer bought Monsanto in 2018 and the two now face tens of thousands of claims in various courts and have settled two-thirds of cases for about $11 billion.
More than 400 cases are in the Roundup program in Philadelphia's Complex Litigation Center. Most recently, plaintiffs lawyers attempted to subpoena documents from the Modern Ag Alliance, a group with dozens of members upset with Roundup litigation.
Executive director Elizabeth Burns-Thompson says the industry needs direction from regulators, not "jackpot justice" lawsuits.
Another major verdict in Philadelphia was $725 million against Exxon Mobil. A former mechanic alleged its petroleum exposed him to benzene and caused his cancer.
The trial court upheld the verdict and added $90 million in delay damages, the Marathon report said. Another Pennsylvania verdict mentioned in the report was $23.5 million against Honda in a case in which the plaintiff said a defective fuel cap on his motorcycle caused it to catch fire when he collided with a truck.
Philadelphia and Dallas County, Texas, were the courts issuing the most nuclear verdicts (10), though the total amounts were quite different. Philadelphia was nearly $3.4 billion, while Dallas County was $501 million.
