A Vallejo man who worked as a groundskeeper for Benicia Unified School District won a case against agribusiness corporation Monsanto after alleging that use of the company’s widely used weed killer product Roundup gave him cancer. A jury for the Superior Court of San Francisco ordered Monsanto to pay Dewayne Johnson $289 million in damages.

The lawsuit was one of several filed against Monsanto claiming Roundup, particularly its active ingredient glyphosate, is linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer that originates in the white blood cells. Monsanto has denied the link, and the Environmental Protection Agency has said that glyphosate is safe as long as Roundup users follow directions on the label. Still, jurors sided with Johnson after three days of deliberations.

Johnson, now 46, began working at BUSD as a full-time integrated pest manager in June 2012. A major part of his job involved mixing and spraying Roundup Pro as well as a similar Monsanto product RangerPro on an average of 20 to 40 times per year, according to a timeline written by Johnson’s attorneys. He averaged two to five hours of spraying each day at numerous locations, as well as four hours of spraying on weekends. In his deposition, Johnson said he would wear a full-body Tyvek suit as well as chemical resistant rubber gloves and boots, eye goggles and a paper mask. He also said that constant winds would result in exposure to spray drift on his cheeks, ears and neck.

Johnson relayed an incident where he was the spraying Ranger Pro down the hillside near Mary Farmar Elementary School, when the hose was caught in a gap between the sidewalk and the asphalt, detached from the reel and started spraying into the air. Johnson said the liquid had seeped into his Tyvek suit and got on his clothes inside. He said it took about 25 minutes to get the situation cleaned up.

In 2014, Johnson had developed a rash over his entire body. In August of that year, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. That November, he contacted Monsanto about a potential cancer link but did not hear back. In 2015, he called the Missouri Poison Control Center, which advised him his cancer was unrelated but would forward the complaint to Monsanto, which did not respond.

In his deposition, Johnson said he would not have used Roundup if he had been aware of a potential link to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“I would never have sprayed that product on school grounds or around any people if I knew it would cause them harm,” he said.

In 2016, Johnson filed a lawsuit against Monsanto. Earlier this year, Johnson’s doctors told him the disease had spread rapidly and he would have only months to live, so the trial was expedited.

Monsanto’s defense noted the need for herbicides, cited studies from numerous agencies that considered Roundup to be safe and suggested that Johnson’s cancer could have been unrelated because non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma can take years to develop. Jurors felt there was a link and that the company should have provided a label to warn users of a potential risk.

Monsanto, which was purchased by Bayer earlier this year, has announced the company will appeal the decision.

“We are sympathetic to Mr. Johnson and his family,” Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge said in a statement Friday. “Today’s decision does not change the fact that more than 800 scientific studies and reviews – and conclusions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and regulatory authorities around the world – support the fact that glyphosate does not cause cancer, and did not cause Mr. Johnson’s cancer. We will appeal this decision and continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use and continues to be a vital, effective, and safe tool for farmers and others.”

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