Paraquat Lawsuit Settlement Amounts (November 2025)

Latest Paraquat Lawsuit Settlement Status

As of October 2025, there were 6,445 Paraquat lawsuits in the MDL. As more people connect their Parkinson’s diagnosis to Paraquat, the number of cases involved has continued to grow.

Since May, the judge in the case has been extending a stay on case-specific discovery. The stay pauses the progress of lawsuits to give attorneys for the plaintiffs and defendants time to negotiate a settlement.

The stay has been extended to January 5, 2026. This might seem to suggest that all parties believe a settlement is right around the corner. However, it’s also possible that this is just one more extension in a series of many.

The Basics of Paraquat Lawsuits

Thousands of victims have filed lawsuits against the manufacturers of Paraquat, Chevron and Syngenta. These lawsuits allege personal injuries and wrongful deaths from exposure to the herbicide.

There are typically two ways to pursue claims for exposure to toxic chemicals. A class action lawsuit is filed by a class representative. People with common claims can join the class. The class action constitutes a single case that could have thousands of members. Since it is a single case, it only has one trial, and the resolution of the case will apply to all the class members who do not opt out.

The other way to pursue claims against a manufacturer is to file individual claims. This is what happened with the Paraquat lawsuits. There is no class action against Chevron and Syngenta. Instead, thousands of victims have each filed separate lawsuits.

The federal courts have grouped the Paraquat lawsuits using a process called multi-district litigation (MDL). By putting in a single district under a single judge, the plaintiffs can gather evidence and prepare motions efficiently.

The MDL cases remain separate, but the parties and the court select bellwether cases to send to trial first. These cases give everyone the temperature of the claims and the damage awards. The hope is that everyone becomes more attuned to the possible range of settlements.

The Paraquat MDL has not had a bellwether trial yet. On the contrary, four of the bellwether cases selected by the parties were dismissed by the court on the eve of trial. The issue was the reliability of the testimony offered by the plaintiffs’ expert witness. While thousands of cases remain, the dismissal of the bellwether cases will delay the settlement of the Paraquat cases.

How Paraquat Exposure Is Linked to Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative disorder that involves the motor system. It starts gradually and gets progressively worse. These are some of the main symptoms:

• Tremors (usually starting in the fingers and hands)
• Muscle stiffness that’s often painful
• Trouble with automatic movements like smiling or blinking
• Balance issues
• Slow movement
• Poor posture
• Changes in speech

There’s a significant body of research showing that Paraquat causes Parkinson’s. This is because it destroys human nerve cells in the same way it destroys plant cells.

Paraquat kills weeds by causing oxidative stress (a destructive imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants). This imbalance makes cells deteriorate and die. In humans, oxidative stress can cause nerve cells to degenerate and die, too.

Estimated Paraquat Settlement Amounts by Case Type

Because lawsuits against multiple Paraquat manufacturers are ongoing, there’s no way to reliably predict the settlement amounts victims of Paraquat might expect. However, if the settlements and verdicts in the Roundup lawsuit are any indication, plaintiffs might expect settlements anywhere from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of millions.

You also can use established legal principles and other mass tort settlements to guess what form a settlement could take.

In an MDL, the manufacturers can settle each case one by one. However, this approach takes time and often ends up costing more than settling all the cases at once. As a result, a settlement will likely take the form of a global settlement. Such a settlement happens when the manufacturers put money into a personal injury settlement fund for current and future claims.

Many MDLs determine individual lawsuit settlements through a tiered system. Plaintiffs are divided into tiers based on injury severity, and tiers that have suffered the most substantial losses receive the most significant compensation.

Severity of Injury

The severity of the injury will be the most important factor used to determine the settlement tier. Terminal illnesses will qualify claimants for a higher tier than a survivable illness. Thus, those with Parkinson’s disease would get more than those with lung scarring.

Impact of the Injury on Ability to Work

Parkinson’s disease may make it impossible to continue working in your current field. If you’re a surgeon, mechanic or other professional who must have fine motor skills, you may be unable to make a living. In other fields, you may be able to stay in the workforce but end up reducing your hours.

Medical Expenses

In a personal injury case, “economic damages” refers to compensation for financial losses. For many plaintiffs, medical bills make up a substantial portion of their economic damages.

Some medical conditions cost more than others. Victims with kidney failure might need an expensive transplant. Those with Parkinson’s might need a caretaker for the rest of their lives. Those with lung scarring might only need respiratory therapy.

Level of Physical and Emotional Suffering Experienced

Life-changing diagnoses like Parkinson’s disease cause more than economic suffering. You might struggle with physical pain, damaged social relationships and depression connected to your diagnosis. For many people, Parkinson’s makes it impossible to enjoy hobbies and other activities they once loved.

In many cases, courts and insurance companies use something called the pain and suffering multiplier to determine compensation for intangible losses. The case is assigned a multiplier between 1.5 and five. Compensation for pain and suffering is determined by multiplying their economic damages by that factor.

Clear Connection to Paraquat Exposure

Proving your diagnosis and how it’s impacted your life (financially and otherwise) is an important part of the process. However, you should also be able to prove that Paraquat exposure was the proximate cause of your Parkinson’s.

Proving probable cause often involves testimony from your medical professionals and copies of medical records. You may need to be able to show that you were employed by a company that used Paraquat regularly.

Because each case is unique, your attorney will be able to help you decide how to effectively show that Paraquat exposure caused your illness.

The Science Behind Paraquat Risks

Many studies have found that Paraquat can contribute to Parkinson’s disease. However, the best-known one is a 2011 National Institutes of Health (NIH) study that found people who used Paraquat or rotenone (a similar chemical) were 2.5 times more likely to develop Parkinson’s than people who did not.

However, Paraquat isn’t just risky over the long term. If this chemical contacts the lining of your mouth (or if it reaches your stomach or intestines), it can spread through your body and destroy cells. If you come into contact with enough Paraquat at once, you may suffer organ failure or death.

Learn More About a Possible Paraquat Settlement From ConsumerShield

Paraquat has been tied to many medical conditions and health problems. But the gears of justice turn slowly. Meeting the evidentiary standards set by American courts will take time.

ConsumerShield is dedicated to educating people about their legal rights. We provide resources to help victims of Paraquat understand the status of ongoing litigation. We also connect claimants with a product liability attorney who can assess their claims and help them seek fair compensation from any settlement fund created by the manufacturers. Fill out our contact form for a free case evaluation.