A U.S. Judge Lowers Jury Award for Cancer Patient from Roundup

It was on Monday that a federal judge decided to cut a Roundup jury award from $80.27 million to $25.3 million to Edwin Hardeman, who blamed the company’s weed killer for his cancer.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco rejected the company’s bid fo a new trial. Bayer says it plans to appeal the decision still.

Judge Chhabria said that evidence against the former Monsanto Co, which Bayer bought last year for $63 billion, supported the $5.27 million in compensatory damages that a jury awarded California’s Hardeman. He also said the jury acted reasonably in awarding punitive damages.

Hardeman said that he had used Roundup for many years starting in the 1980s and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2014. He is now in remission.

Chhabria said that while Monsanto “deserves to be punished” the higher award was “constitutionally impermissible” because it was nearly 15 times the compensatory damages 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,” Chhabria wrote.

Over 13,400 plaintiffs have sued Bayer and Monsanto over Roundup, claiming that the herbicide’s active ingredient, glyphosate, is unsafe.

Bayer called Chhabria’s decision “a step in the right direction,” but said it still plans to appeal.

According to the company, the verdict and damages award “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.”

“We are pleased that the judge denied Monsanto’s motion to throw out the verdict, and recognized that Monsanto deserved to be punished,” said Jennifer Moore, a lawyer for Hardeman. “We disagree with any reduction in the jury verdict.”