Whitehead Farms and Kevin Whitehead v. Monsanto Co, BASF Co and John Does 1-25

Reference :

CV-2017-40 / MDL No. 2820

Complaint date :

July 3, 2017

Status :

Not judged

Place of jurisdiction :

United States, Arkansas, Woodruff County

Plaintiffs types :

Economic stakeholders, Farmers

Plaintiffs names :

Whitehead Farms, Kevin Whitehead

Defendants :

Monsanto, BASF, Other

Lawyers for Health and Environmental Justice :

Alex gray, Nate Steel, Marshall Wright, Jeremy Hutchinson, Scott Poynter

Case nature :

Civil court

Specificities :

Class action, Multi-district litigation

Type(s), Product(s), Active substance(s) :

Herbicide, Dicamba

Requests :

A trial by jury on all issues so triable; order certifying this lawsuit as a class action under ARCP 23; judgment for compensatory and actual damages; judgment for punitive damages;

Name of the Court :

Circuit Court of Arkansas, Woodruff County, United States

Jurisdiction level :

Summary :

The plaintiffs brought a class action against the manufacturers of the herbicide dicamba. Dicamba, which was used on Monsanto's new genetically modified cotton and soya varieties to enable farmers to apply dicamba directly to the genetically modified crops, damaged their crops. Dicamba is highly volatile and can cause damage to crops several kilometres away.

On February 2, 2018, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ruled that 11 lawsuits filed in 4 states (including this one) against the manufacturers of dicamba will be centralized in the Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis.

On 24 June 2020, Bayer announced that it was settling Roundup, Dicamba and PCB lawsuits in the US for more than $10 billion, with $400 million earmarked to resolve lawsuits involving Monsanto's dicamba herbicide, where plaintiffs provided evidence that crop yield damage was linked to Dicamba.

The settlement covered all claims in the Multi-District Litigation (MDL).

Scientific references :

No scientifice reference for this case.