Roundup Award Reduced by $55 Million

OMAHA (DTN) -- A punitive damage award was reduced from $80 million to $25 million on Monday for a cancer victim who won a lawsuit against Monsanto Company (now Bayer AG) alleging the use of its Roundup glyphosate herbicide caused his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

At the end of March, a California jury awarded $80 million to Edwin Hardeman who had used glyphosate at an animal refuge for nearly 30 years.

On July 15, Judge Vince Chhabria, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled the $80 million award was unconstitutional. However, the court denied the company's request for a new trial.

"The court's decision to reduce the punitive damage awards is a step in the right direction, as constitutional limitations and controlling precedent dictate that excessive damage awards like those in this case be reduced," Bayer said in a statement to DTN.

"Still, the liability verdict and damage awards are not supported by the reliable evidence presented at trial, and conflict with both the weight of the extensive science that supports the safety of Roundup, and the conclusions of leading health regulators in the U.S. and around the world that glyphosate is not carcinogenic."

Bayer said it plans to file an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.

Back in May 2019, a couple that battled cancer after decades of using Roundup was awarded $2.055 billion in damages in another California case. It's the largest of three awards juries have handed out since the company acquired Monsanto last year. (https://www.dtnpf.com/…)

Last year, another jury in the state awarded $289 million to a groundskeeper with cancer who used the chemical. The award was later reduced to $78 million. (https://www.dtnpf.com/…)

There still are more than 13,000 additional Roundup trials still pending.

"It is easy to uphold the award of past noneconomic damages," the judge wrote in the latest ruling.

"Mr. Hardeman presented substantial evidence of his past emotional and physical suffering, including the terror of being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the uncertainty surrounding his long-term prognosis, and the debilitating effects of chemotherapy. There is no basis for questioning the jury's valuation of that suffering."

The judge said the evidence presented at trial showed the company's approach to safety of Roundup was "indeed reprehensible." Chhabria said in his ruling there was "mitigating evidence" as well. "While this jury concluded it was more likely than not that Roundup caused Mr. Hardeman's NHL, the metaphorical jury is still out on whether glyphosate causes NHL."

The court said evidence presented by the company at trial "betrayed a lack of concern about the risk that its product might be carcinogenic."

Agricultural crops genetically engineered to withstand glyphosate have greatly expanded use of the chemistry since 1996. Glyphosate also is used in forestry, urban, lawn and garden applications. Bayer also had glyphosate in its portfolio before acquiring Monsanto.

That broad use has drawn worldwide attention to the herbicide and its safety.

Though glyphosate was developed by Monsanto, it is off-patent and sold by many agriculture companies as one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. It came to market in 1974 under Monsanto's Roundup label for control of perennial and annual weeds in non-crop and industrial areas. In 2018, California regulators failed in an attempt to label glyphosate products as "known to cause cancer."

On May 1, 2019, an EPA interim review of glyphosate found no human health risks associated with its use and that the herbicide is not a carcinogen. However, the agency did acknowledge glyphosate poses some ecological risks.

In 2015, an assessment by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, concluded glyphosate was "probably carcinogenic."

The IARC came under fire as a result of its broad declarations about what is carcinogenic in detailed summary reports known as monographs. The agency, for instance, drew scorn in 2015 for a monograph classifying processed red meats such as bacon as carcinogenic.

The IARC's glyphosate finding set off a series of reactions. The EPA released and retracted a report refuting the IARC's conclusion in 2015.

Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @toddneeleyDTN

(ES/CZ)

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