ROUNDUP VICTIM AWWARDED $289 MILLION

San Francisco jury socks it to Monsanto after finding that a 46-year-old school groundskeeper, with only weeks to live, got non-Hodgkin's lymphoma from daily spraying of Roundup

Dewayne Johnson, 46, worked as a groundskeeper for the school district in Benicia, California form 2012 through mid-2015. He worked daily mixing up Roundup and spraying the weed killer. In 2014, Johnson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer that attacks the white blood cells.

On Friday a San Francisco jury found that Roundup caused Johnson’s cancer and ruled that Monsanto, the weed killer’s manufacturer, would have to pay the victim $250 million in punitive damages, plus nearly $40 million in compensatory damages, for a total of $289 million.

Johnson was given only a few years to live when the cancer was discovered. Today, 80 percent of the victim’s body is covered with lesions. His wife works 14 hours a day on two jobs to support the family. The Johnsons have two sons.

Monsanto will appeal the verdict. Johnson will probably die well before this case finally ends. Meanwhile more than a thousand plaintiffs have filed similar lawsuits against Monsanto. Thousands of others are expected to join the Roundup lawsuit bandwagon.

In June, the German drug maker Bayer acquired Monsanto for more than $62 billion. It has announced that the Monsanto name would be replaced with Bayer.