Bayer AG on Aug. 9 lost another round in the ongoing litigation over its Roundup herbicide when a California appeals court in San Francisco refused to overturn a 2019 verdict that awarded $86.7 million to a couple who claimed the glyphosate-based herbicide caused their cancer.
The original jury award to Alva and Alberta Pilliod in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland, Calif., was $2 billion in punitive damages and $55 million in compensatory relief (GM May 17, 2019), but the trial judge later reduced it to $86.7 million.
The ruling by the 1st Appellate District in the Court of Appeal for California stated that Monsanto Co., which Bayer acquired in 2018 for $63 billion, exhibited “reckless disregard” for the health and safety of Roundup customers “over a period of many years motivated by the desire for sales and profit.”
In its appeal, Bayer argued that the Pilliod claims were preempted by federal law and the jury’s causation findings were flawed. The company also argued that the damage award should be further reduced, and that the verdict was the product of “attorney misconduct” and the trial court should not have admitted certain evidence.
Two earlier Roundup trials yielded combined damages of $159 million against Bayer, including an August 2018 decision by a California jury (GM Aug. 17. 2018) awarding $289 million in damages to a groundskeeper who claimed Roundup gave him cancer, although that amount was later reduced to $78 million (GM Oct. 26, 2018). A U.S. jury awarded a second California man more than $80 million in March 2019 over a similar claim.
A fourth Roundup trial began on Aug. 5 in state court in San Bernardino, Calif. According to Bloomberg, lawyers for Donnetta Stephens began laying out their claims to a jury that the 70-year-old woman developed non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma after using Roundup for more than 30 years in her yard.
Before the trial started, Bloomberg reported that Bayer’s lawyers persuaded California Superior Court Judge Gilbert Ochoa to throw out Stephens’ claims that the company hid Roundup’s health risks. This may make it easier for the manufacturer to win the case, said Richard Ausness, a University of Kentucky law professor who teaches about mass injury suits.
“Failure to warn in these product-liability cases is usually the strongest claim, so if that’s out, Bayer definitely has a better chance of winning the case,” Ausness told Bloomberg. “Sounds like they could really use a win.”