Updated

Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 17

Bayer’s $7.25 Billion Roundup Settlement Returns to Missouri Court After Federal Bid Fails

Updated

Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 17

Bayer’s $7.25 Billion Roundup Settlement Returns to Missouri Court After Federal Bid Fails

Q: Why was a settlement affecting thousands sent back to a state court despite a top federal judge's 'grave concerns'?

It was sent back to Missouri state court because the dispute turned on jurisdiction, not on whether Judge Vince Chhabria thought the deal was sound. Chhabria, the federal judge overseeing the nationwide federal Roundup litigation in San Francisco, has sharply criticized Bayer’s proposed $7.25 billion settlement, calling parts of it “mind boggling” and raising grave concerns about whether it can lawfully bind people outside Missouri and even people not yet diagnosed with cancer. He also questioned the settlement’s unusual opt-out rules, which require broad action from Roundup users. But the settlement was filed in Missouri state court, and the objectors’ effort to pull it into federal court failed. A federal judge in St. Louis ruled the case should remain where it was filed, rejecting the bid to transfer it to Chhabria. In practical terms, that meant federal judges could not take over review of the settlement simply because they disliked its terms. Chhabria himself had already indicated that, despite his criticism, the legal defects he saw were for Missouri’s appellate courts — and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court — to address, not him. So the case went back to the state system because that is the court with authority over this settlement process. The result is that the fairness hearing and any challenge to the settlement’s validity will proceed in Missouri court, even as federal judges continue to voice concern about whether the deal is fair and constitutional.

3 articles · Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 17

$7.25 billion in Bayer’s proposed Roundup settlements for thousands of U.S. cancer claims was sent back to Missouri state court in St. Louis.
A federal judge on Wednesday rejected critics’ effort to move the dispute to U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco, who oversees federal Roundup litigation.
Some claimants had argued a federal court should decide whether the settlement is valid rather than leaving that question to the Missouri state court.
The ruling keeps the fight over Bayer’s mass settlement structure in state court even as Chhabria has previously denounced its terms as “mind boggling.”