Bayer welcomes judge's call for reduction in court case damages

Bayer welcomed a US judge's call to cut a $2-billion damages payout awarded by a jury to a couple in California after having found that the Monsanto produced glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup had been the cause of their cancer.

In June, Bayer requested that Judge Winifred Y. Smith of Alameda Country Superior Court in California overrule the verdict that Roundup caused Alva and Alberta Pilliod's non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL) on the basis that there was no supporting evidence.

In a 15 page opinion, Judge Smith said that the damages should be reduced. A hearing will go ahead later today on reduced damages. If the parties are unable to agree, the case could go to retrial.

“The court’s tentative order proposes changes in the damage awards, which would be a step in the right direction,” Bayer said in a statement. “Bayer will wait for a final order on the post-trial motions before commenting in further detail.”

In response to the news, shares in Bayer had gone up 1.9% this morning.

On May 13, the jury found that the Pilliod's NHL had been caused by the use of Roundup on their property between 1975 and 2011 and ordered Bayer to pay over $2-billion in damages.

Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018 for $63-billion. The ensuing blowup of the Roundup litigation beat down the German company's value, leaving it with a stock market capitalisation of less than it had paid for the takeover.

The jury awarded $18 million in compensatory and $1-billion in punitive damages to Alva Pilliod, and $37 million in compensatory and $1-billion in punitive damages to his wife.

Judge Smith's ruling found that the compensatory damages that were awarded were  “not supportable by the evidence” and also questioned the basis for the jury's larger damages award. She said that punitive damages should be two to four times combined economic and non-economic compensatory damages.

According to calculations by Reuters, if the compensatory damages are upheld, applying the thinking of Judge Smith would result in maximum punitive damages of $220-million - a fraction of the original jury award.

Last week, in a separate case, a US judge cut a damages award that Bayer had been ordered to pay a man in California who also blamed his cancer on Roundup, to $25-million from $80-million.

Bayer still faces further Roundup cancer lawsuits from over 13,400 plaintiffs across the US. The company has always denied the allegations and claims the weedkiller is safe for human use.

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