Articles Posted in Settlement

Courthouse-300x200In May of 2020, speculation began that the multi-district litigation (MDL) regarding the German chemical giant, Bayer, and its weed killing product, Roundup, was close to settling. Hundreds of thousands of claims have been made claiming the product causes serious long-term health conditions, most notably, leukemia, B-cell lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma or multiple myeloma.

In late June, that speculation seemed to be well supported, as Bayer disclosed its intent to settle tens of thousands of cases for a sum of $10 billion, while continuing to sell the product with new warning label. As a result, the Judge presiding over the matter, the Honorable Vince Chhabria, paused the massive litigation until November, allowing the parties to work out the particulars of the complex agreement.

Now, last Thursday, August 27th, Bayer announced that the majority of the settlements it had previously declared resolved, were in-fact in jeopardy of falling apart. Where Bayer had told the court that 75% of the 125,000 Roundup claims were resolved, only 32,000 cases were actually resolved—12,000 of which were in state courts, rather than the federal MDL over which Judge Chhabria presides.

The family of inmate Kenneth Dalstra–who died from drinking too much water due to mental health issues inside a Michigan prison–recently settled their lawsuit in federal court against the Michigan Department of Corrections (DOC). The family sued three prison guards in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids for allowing their mentally unstable son to commit suicide by overdosing himself with water. According to a spokesperson from the DOC, the family received over $1 million in a settlement.Kenneth was 41 years old when he died of water intoxication at Richard A. Hanlon Correctional Facility. He suffered from psychogenic polydipsia, a pathological compulsion to consume water or other liquids triggered by mental illness. The lawsuit indicates that Kenneth suffered a schizophrenic breakdown in the days preceding his death. He died in April 2014 in the prison in Ionia, Michigan. He was sentenced in November 2013 to 3.5 to 75 years incarceration for criminal sexual conduct.

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