Cobb County Jury Awards John Barnes $2.065 Billion in Roundup Cancer Trial

John Barnes treated weeds for years, spraying Roundup around his property and handling the glyphosate-based product at home for about two decades. Like millions of other buyers, he believed it was safe. In 2020, doctors diagnosed him with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer that begins in the body's immune cells.

Barnes sued Monsanto, the company that makes Roundup, in 2021. He argued that the weedkiller caused his cancer and that Monsanto had known about the risk for years while keeping any warning off the label. Monsanto, owned by the German company Bayer, denied that glyphosate causes cancer and pointed to regulators who have allowed the product to stay on store shelves.

The case, Barnes v. Monsanto, went to trial in the State Court of Cobb County in Marietta, Georgia. Kyle Findley of Arnold & Itkin served as lead trial lawyer, working alongside co-counsel from Kline & Specter. Over about three weeks of testimony, the plaintiff's team presented scientific evidence linking glyphosate to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and internal company records that, they argued, showed Monsanto worked to shape the science and avoid putting a cancer warning on Roundup.

On March 21, 2025, the jury sided with Barnes. It awarded $65 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages, for a total of $2.065 billion. It was the fourth Roundup trial that Findley's team had won, following a $2.25 billion verdict in Philadelphia in January 2024.

Bayer said it would appeal and ask higher courts to set aside or cut the award. The company called the verdict inconsistent with "the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence" and said it stands behind the safety of Roundup. Its planned grounds included arguments that the damages were constitutionally excessive and that the trial judge wrongly excluded evidence about other herbicides Barnes had bought, along with testimony from his ex-wife about chemicals stored in the family garage.

As of the verdict, no court had reduced the award, though Bayer noted that jury awards in Roundup cases have often been cut sharply after trial. The company said it had prevailed in 17 of the last 25 Roundup cases that reached a verdict. By the time the Cobb County jury ruled, Bayer faced more than 177,000 lawsuits over Roundup and had set aside roughly $16 billion to resolve them.