Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / Roundup’s Endgame: Trial Dates, Venue Tactics, and Settlement Strategy

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Roundup’s Endgame: Trial Dates, Venue Tactics, and Settlement Strategy · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:10
  Live from Las Vegas, it is Tort Talk with Joe Fantini, Mark Ryu
• 0:14
  and myself, John Robinson. Today we're doing it live from
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  MTMP. We've got Seth Crompton of
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  Crompton, Penn Coast, who's going to talk to us about
• 0:22
  Roundup. We're going to do this as close
• 0:24
  to 10 minutes as possible and give everybody the boots on the
• 0:27
  ground insight into what's going on in this litigation.
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  Thanks for joining us, Seth. Yeah.
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  Thank you for having me. I really appreciate you guys
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  having me here to talk about an important case.
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  Thanks for, you know, coming on and talking about Roundup.
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  We just had it in our power rankings as #1 so this is when
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  the legacy towards we've been talking about for a while.
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  Mark, what are what are some of the things here that you're most
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  interested in getting out of Seth kind of the man on the
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  ground in this litigation? We've seen a lot of movement
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  happening and it seems like there's a lot of momentum going
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  into 2026. So what's going on with the case
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  today? Kind of what's your boots on the
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  ground, What are you seeing right now?
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  A. Lot of litigation is kind of
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  centered in Missouri. There's a large number of cases
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  in Saint Louis County, a fewer number of cases in Saint Louis
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  City. Because of our venue rules, we
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  won't get into all that. And then there are for a period
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  of time filings in Cole County, which is where our actual state
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  capital sets. And So what kind of switch those
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  venues around was initially Monsanto had its registered
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  agent in Saint Louis County and so any out of state plaintiff
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  would have had to file where the registered agent is about, I
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  can't remember exactly, sometime 2122 they switched to Cole
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  County and so all the plaintiffs started filing in Cole County
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  and then 2024 they moved the registered agent back to Saint
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  Louis County. So again the filings going
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  forward have mostly been in Saint Louis County since then.
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  There are some other kind of venues around with their
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  Missouri specific plaintiffs across the state, but I would
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  say that when you talk about there being 10s of thousands of
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  cases in the state of Missouri, they're mostly concentrated in
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  Saint Louis County and Cole County.
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  And that's really good insight. And a lot of people don't know
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  that, but I know you filed cases and all three of those counties,
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  did they do that because they thought they could get a more
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  favorable venue? Is that what you think kind of
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  led to that? So kind of amusingly, and they
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  they said it in open Court One time, one one of the lawyers
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  from Monsanto actually said that that was an accident to move it
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  to Cole County. I don't necessarily believe that
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  was an accident. Those are big firms and big
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  corporations. I think things were backing up
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  in Saint Louis County. They moved it to Cole County,
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  which they thought maybe a more favorable venue for them.
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  And then there was a big verdict in Cole County, which everyone
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  heard about the billion dollar verdict.
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  And then sometime around then it gets moved back to Saint Louis
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  County. So they're clearly trying to
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  move cases around where they think that they're best postured
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  for the litigation. Missouri's been a pretty
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  plaintiff friendly venue. I know we like to go there for a
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  bunch of different cases, but in the Roundup litigation
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  specifically, we only have about 4500 cases left in the MDL.
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  How many cases do you think we have in Missouri State court
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  right now? I'm hearing 30,000.
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  I would say 30 to 40,000 probably all told across the.
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  State, yeah. And so I know we talked to John
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  and Mark some reports recently about some inventory
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  settlements. Could you just kind of fill in
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  everybody like what is an inventory settlement?
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  So an inventory settlement generally focuses on one firm.
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  So one firm will go in and resolve their set of cases
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  directly. With Monsanto, it doesn't
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  involve anybody else's cases or anything like that.
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  It's just their own specific inventory.
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  And there was a bigger inventory settlement that we kind of heard
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  about recently. And then across the country,
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  there have been other settlements as cases have come
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  up for trial. I mean, not just in the Missouri
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  area, it's kind of been across the country, but this, there was
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  a more recent inventory settlement.
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  So kind of interesting to see where things are headed, you
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  know, going into next year as we come to the end of 2025.
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  Crazy enough already. Yeah.
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  So that, you know, shows us that they're resolving cases.
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  I think the report was maybe 17,000 cases, so a pretty big
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  inventory. And then he talked a little bit
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  about these trial setting cases and they're settling the cases
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  one off before they, you know, get to the jury.
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  So in Missouri we're pretty much all of the action centered now.
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  What's the trial docket looking like?
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  Are there any more the rest of 25 or we got to wait till 26?
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  I think most of the stuff you will see coming up is 2626 is
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  pretty heavily scheduled. There's probably about 6 or 7
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  cases set for trial between early in the year and the
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  spring. Think you're going to see quite
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  a bit of action on the roundup early in the.
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  Year. How many do you think we're
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  going to get through before there's a global?
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  I don't know, it depends. How bad the first couple go.
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  Yeah, but you know, next year's interesting in the sense of, you
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  know, there's a lot of things are going to come to a head next
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  year, right? You know, the tort obviously
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  ages. We talked about it as a tort.
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  But, you know, at the end of the day, there are individual people
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  in there and their cases age, you know, they want their cases
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  done at some point too. But, you know, we have things
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  like the solicitor general looking at it, you have the EPA
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  looking at things. We're always kind of hearing in
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  the news about different ideas about settlement structures,
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  bankruptcies, all these kind of things.
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  So I think there's a lot of action coming, I think early in
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  the year, a lot of things I think are going to come to a
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  head in 2026 and. Another big thing that they're
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  talking about is releasing that new product onto the market,
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  getting round off the market altogether.
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  So usually what we see in mass torts is the defendants want to
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  end the liability. So the way they can start trying
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  to do that, even though we have the latency is pulled from the
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  market. So it it seems like the next two
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  months we're probably won't hear anything about any verdicts or
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  big numbers. But going into 26, we'll really
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  see what their strategy is and then we'll have to wait to see
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  are we getting big numbers and verdicts or do the these, you
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  know, cases just disappear off the docket?
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  What does that usually mean when they're hard set for trial and
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  then disappear from that trial setting?
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  So it's probably one of two things.
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  One, we're starting to starting to, you know, see some movement
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  in discussing broader settlements because there are
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  also some cases, and I didn't mention this, I failed to set in
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  Coal County coming up. So you start to see, you know,
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  is some movement on broader dockets.
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  And sometimes it might just simply be it's a really great
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  plaintiff and there is no circumstances where they want
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  that plaintiff tried. So both of them are always a
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  possibility. But generally speaking, you
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  know, and, and this is true for any mass tort, when you start
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  seeing, you know, the trial picks picked off, there might be
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  some settlement discussions going on.
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  Yeah. And that's what we've talked
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  about here before on Tortalk. It's these trial dates that
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  really lead the settlements in the mass torts, right?
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  If we can't get those dates set and apply the pressure to the
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  defendants, these cases just drag on forever.
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  So it's exciting to hear from you about how many trials we
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  have set coming up in 26. And I think that really changes
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  the whole dynamic of the litigation.
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  Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, the, the, the old adages
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  always remain true. You know, when we first started
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  doing personal injury cases years, years ago, that was a car
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  wreck. You'd say, hey, go get a trial
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  date as soon as possible. Was trial date settle cases?
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  And even though we're talking about a much grander scale and
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  much more complicated than the car wreck, certainly the old
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  adage of getting trial dates, moves cases still stands true to
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  this day. Yeah.
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  And one thing you talked about was the solicitor general.
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  I know there's no deadline for that, but even if it does, you
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  know, go up to the Supreme Court, we're expecting this
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  decision before June, which is going to be the end of the term.
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  So in my mind, I'm saying about 8 months left in this
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  litigation. Do you see it going longer than
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  that? Well.
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  I think the solicitor general piece really is targeting the
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  failure to warn cause of action. I think design defect is another
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  cause of action. And in some states it's good for
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  plaintiffs. Some states it's tough for
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  plaintiffs to show there's negligence and things like that.
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  Even if it all went in Monsanto's favor, it that
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  necessarily ends the litigation. But I do think it's part of what
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  they're piercing together to put pressure to bring the numbers
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  into range they would prefer them to be, certainly, and just,
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  you know, part of their overall strategy.
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  Yeah. And so that's a really important
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  aspect of it. They're they're peeling up to
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  the Supreme Court, the preemption, which is, like you
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  said, the failure to warn on the state level.
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  But each of these complaints or petitions, there's maybe half a
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  dozen or a dozen causes of action.
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  So even if they win, even if they knock out that failure to
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  warrant, a lot of these states are still going to be viable and
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  they're still going to be cases that you could have causes of
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  action that said you could go to trial and and went on, right?
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  Absolutely. I mean there have been cases
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  tried simply on design defect theories, you know, not not
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  dealing with the failure to warn.
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  So yeah, I mean, there's other avenues to try the case for
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  sure. Great Intel and this is a case
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  has been around for a long time. It seems like we're finally like
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  close to the finish line, as close as you can be.
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  Really appreciate you joining us today, giving us this Intel,
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  letting everybody know what's going on with Roundup.
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  Good luck for the remainder of 25 and into 26 and hopefully we
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  have a positive. And then if the audience has any
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  questions about Roundup and wants to get a hold of you,
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  what's the easiest way for them to get in touch with you?
• 9:13
  Yeah. Shoot an e-mail to my e-mail
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  it's S Crompton at cromptonpaincoast.com Happy to
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  talk to anybody and again appreciate y'all having me on.
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  You guys important function to getting information out to
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  everybody and helps us do our job too.
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  So thank you all for do what you do and thank you for having me
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  on. Appreciate it.
• 9:30
  Thank you.