US judge reduces roundup jury award to $ 25.3 million; Bayer still plans to appeal

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Monday awarded damages to Bayer AG (BAYGn.DE) owed $ 25.27 million, against $ 80.27 million, to a Californian who blamed the Roundup terrorist for his cancer, while rejecting the company's bid for a new trial.

US District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco said that evidence against the former Monsanto Co, purchased by Bayer last year, supported the $ 5.27 million in compensatory damages awarded by a jury to Edwin Hardeman. He also stated that the jury had acted reasonably in awarding punitive damages.

Chhabria nevertheless reduced the punitive damages from $ 75 million to $ 20 million, claiming that even though Monsanto "deserved to be punished", the highest compensation was "constitutionally inadmissible" because it was close to 15 times higher than compensatory allowances.

"Monsanto's conduct, while reprehensible, does not warrant a report of this magnitude, particularly in the absence of evidence of intentional concealment of a known or obvious security risk," wrote Chhabria.

Hardeman said he used Roundup for many years from the 1980s to treat poisoned oak and weeds on his property.

He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2014, but is now in remission.

Hardeman is one of more than 13,400 plaintiffs who sued Bayer and Monsanto for Roundup, saying the active ingredient in the herbicide, glyphosate, was dangerous. His case was considered a witness for hundreds of similar cases before Chhabria.

In a statement, Bayer called Chhabria's decision "not in the right direction," but said it still plans to appeal.

Bayer said the verdict and the damages award "contradict both the weight of science that supports Roundup's safety and the findings of major health regulators in the United States and around the world that glyphosate is not carcinogenic ".

Hardeman may appeal Chhabria's decision to reduce damages, which one of his lawyers, Michael Baum, has described as a "reversible mistake".

US Supreme Court precedents limit the ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages to 9 to 1.

"We are pleased that the judge dismissed Monsanto's motion to dismiss the verdict and acknowledged that Monsanto deserved to be punished," said Jennifer Moore, Hardeman's lawyer, at a news conference. interview. "We do not agree with a reduction of the verdict of the jury."

Bayer paid $ 63 billion for Monsanto.

The case concerns liability litigation Roundup Products, US District Court, Northern District of California, No. 16-md-02741. The Hardeman case is the Hardeman case c. Monsanto Co, in the same court, No. 16-00525.