Monsanto MDL Judge Threatens Atty Sanctions As Trial Starts

Law360 | By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge overseeing a high-profile jury trial over claims Monsanto‘s Roundup weedkiller causes cancer blasted the plaintiff’s attorney on the first day of trial Monday, saying she’d intentionally revealed restricted information in her opening statements for the trial’s first phase, and threatening her with sanctions.

During the first hour of opening arguments, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria interrupted plaintiff Edward Hardeman’s attorney, Aimee H. Wagstaff of Andrus Wagstaff, multiple times. The judge instructed her to “move on” from certain topics that strayed too far afield from whether Monsanto’s herbicides generally cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma and whether it specifically caused Hardeman’s cancer.

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