[JURIST] The Lyon Appeals Court in France upheld [Euronews report] a 2012 ruling on Thursday in which the agricultural company Monsanto [website] was found guilty of chemical poisoning of French farmer Paul Francois. Francois said he suffered various neurological problems as a result of inhaling the US company’s Lasso weedkiller. Monsanto was ordered to fully compensate the grain grower for his ailments. Monsanto’s lawyer said [Reuters report] the company would now take the case to France’s highest appeals court on the theory that experts had found no causal link between the alleged exposure and the health effects Francois claims.

This is not the first lawsuit filed against the US company Monsanto. In May 2013 the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously [JURIST report] in Bowman v. Monsanto that a farmer who buys patented seeds may not reproduce them through planting and harvesting without the patent holder’s permission, even though the seeds are altered to self-replicate. In March 2011 the European Court of Justice declared [JURIST report] that a ban on cultivating GMO crops is illegal after France attempted to prohibit the production of a strain of genetically modified maize developed by Monsanto in 2008. A US judge in December ordered the destruction of a crop [JURIST report] of Monsanto-produced GM sugar beets because of the potentially harmful effect the plants may have on surrounding flora, marking the first time such an order was issued in the US.