Judge slashes $80M Roundup verdict to $25.3M
A California judge found that Monsanto Co.’s conduct was sufficient to warrant punitive damages of $20 million —four times the compensatory damages.
A federal judge has slashed an $80 million Roundup verdict to about $25.3 million after finding that Monsanto’s conduct, while “reprehensible,” did not justify a “constitutionally impermissible” punitive damages award.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California, who refused to overturn the verdict Friday, found that Monsanto Co.’s conduct was sufficient to warrant punitive damages of $20 million — a ratio of four times the compensatory damages.
“Based on the evidence that came in at trial, Monsanto deserves to be punished,” he wrote.
But the judge found that punitive damages of $75 million were 15 times the compensatory damages, which he called “constitutionally impermissible,” forcing him to reduce the award.
“Monsanto’s conduct, while reprehensible, does not warrant a ratio of that magnitude, particularly in the absence of evidence showing intentional concealment of a known or obvious safety risk,” he wrote.
The lead plaintiff’s attorney at the trial, Jennifer Moore, of Moore Law Group in Louisville, Kentucky, called the ruling a “major victory” for her client, California resident Edwin Hardeman and “all individuals injured as a result of Roundup.”
“Judge Chabbria rejected every one of Monsanto’s arguments to throw out the verdict and only reduced the punitive damage award based upon his interpretation of the Constitution,” she wrote in a statement. “We disagree with any reduction of the jury’s verdict. As the court held, ‘Monsanto deserved to be punished.’ For decades, Monsanto has lied about the safety of Roundup and undermined any effort to inform the public that Roundup causes cancer. The jury’s verdict should stand.”
Monsanto’s parent company, Bayer AG, said it planned to appeal the decision. “The court’s decision to reduce the punitive damage award 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. 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.”
A San Francisco jury awarded the verdict March 27. The trial was the second involving claims that Roundup caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma, with a trial last year ending in a $289 million verdict in San Francisco Superior Court, later reduced to $78 million. A third jury, in Alameda County Superior Court, came out with a $2 billion verdict May 13. Monsanto has appealed the other two verdicts.
Bayer had asked to reverse the $80 million verdict, the first in the multidistrict litigation, or grant the company a new trial. Its lawyers claim scientific evidence and regulatory findings found that Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, does not cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma and challenged several of Chhabria’s evidentiary rulings.
On Friday, Chhabria refused to grant those motions.
At a hearing earlier this month, Chhabria appeared poised to reduce the award but retain punitive damages, saying that there was a “fair amount of evidence about Monsanto being pretty crass” about complaints that its herbicide might cause cancer.
The evidence, he wrote Monday, “easily supported a conclusion that Monsanto was more concerned with tamping down safety inquiries and manipulating public opinion than it was with ensuring its product is safe.”
But, while Monsanto’s conduct was “reprehensible,” there was “mitigating evidence,” such as whether Roundup ingredient glyphosate causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
“The trial showed that there is credible evidence on both sides of the scientific debate,” he wrote. “Nor did Mr. Hardeman present any evidence that Monsanto was in fact aware that glyphosate caused cancer but concealed it, thus distinguishing this case from the many cases adjudicating the conduct of the tobacco companies.”
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