Imagine staring down the prospect of 800 lawsuits against Monsanto—all of them involving people who have non-Hodgkin lymphoma that they say was caused by their exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller.

Faced with that scenario, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria this week signaled that he wants Monsanto-Bayer to start mediation with lawyers representing the plaintiffs, in order to avoid hundreds of trials.

Meanwhile, the case of Alva and Alberta Pilliod, both of whom have non-Hodgkin lymphoma they allege was caused by their regular use of Monsanto’s herbicides, is playing out in a San Francisco courtroom this week.

It’s the third such trial, the first two having ended with juries ordering Bayer to pay a combined $158 million to the plaintiffs.

According to U.S. Right to Know’s Carey Gillam, sparks flew early in the Pilliod trial, when attorneys for the plaintiffs demanded a temporary restraining order against Monsanto for “heavy advertising the company has been doing in defense of the safety of its herbicides, including a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal on March 25, the day the voir dire for jury selection in the Pilliod case began.”

Read ‘U.S. Judge Wants Monsanto & Bayer to Start Settlement Talks in Roundup Cancer Litigation’

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