The company’s management made it clear that it intends to appeal this decision, as it has already done in other cases connected to the specific educational institution, Sky Valley Education Center, in the city of Monroe
Monsanto, a subsidiary of the German giant Bayer, was ordered Monday by a US court to pay $857 million in damages and interest to students and relatives at a Washington state school because they were exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a pollutant that is among the so-called “eternal” chemicals.
In a statement received by AFP, the company’s management made it clear that it intends to appeal this decision, as it has already done in other cases related to the specific educational institution, the Sky Valley Education Center, in the city of Monroe.
Five former students and two parents had filed a lawsuit in King County, a jurisdiction that includes Seattle, alleging that their exposure to PCBs leaking from light fixtures made them sick.
Decisions have already been made against teachers, other students and parents of the same school, which provide for the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in fines.
Monsanto has repeatedly recalled that it stopped producing PCBs, chemicals intended to prevent fires, since 1977, that is, before they were banned by the US government in 1979.
The company “never warned anyone that (the PCBs) could last much longer than whatever it was being put in,” Felix Luna, a lawyer representing the seven plaintiffs, said in his affidavit.
“He never warned that when they enter the human body, they stay in it for life, that they are neurotoxic,” that they pose a “danger” to public health, he added.
The agrochemical group is facing a number of other lawsuits linked to the consequences of PCBs.
In its announcement, Monsanto recalled that it has been cleared of several cases.
The company, acquired in 2018 by Bayer for a staggering amount ($63 billion), has repeatedly been ordered to compensate people who came into contact with the herbicide Roundup, with the active ingredient glyphosate.
In mid-November, a jury in Jefferson City, Missouri, ordered Monsanto to pay $1.5 billion in damages and interest to three Americans who attributed their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma to years of Roundup use.
The company has appealed that conviction as well.
Source :Skai
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