Judge Reduces $80M Monsanto Award To $25M For North Bay Man

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CA — A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday reduced an $80-million award levied against Monsanto Co. to $25 million for a Sonoma County man who claimed the company's Roundup weed killer caused his non-Hodgkins' lymphoma.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria upheld a six-person jury's award of approximately $5 million in compensatory damages to Edwin Hardeman, 70, of Santa Rosa, but said that guidelines in a 2013 Supreme Court decision required him to reduce the jury's $75 million in punitive damages to $20 million.

The ruling leaves Hardeman's total award at $25,267,634. His case was the first to go to trial of more than 1,000 federal lawsuits against Monsanto nationwide.

Bloomberg reports that Germany-based Bayer has vowed to keep defending its popular weed killer after losing three trials since summer 2018 when it acquired Monsanto Co., which started making Roundup in the 1970s.

According to Hardeman's timeline, he sprayed Roundup for 26 years — from 1986 through 2012 — to control poison oak and weeds on properties in Forestville and Gualala. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2015, and is now in remission.

In the San Francisco trial that ended in March, Hardeman's lawyers claimed Monsanto should have warned him of the dangers but instead sought to counter studies that might show a link between Roundup and cancer, even to the point of ghost-writing some papers.

Monsanto lawyers maintained during the trial that the company acted responsibly and that as of 2012 — when Hardeman said he stopped using Roundup — no regulatory agencies or health organizations had banned the herbicide.

Bayer AG sought a retrial in the case but late Friday, that request was denied by Judge Chhabria.

Reached by Patch Monday afternoon, Bayer spokeswoman Charla Lord confirmed punitive damages were reduced in post-trial motions to $20 million, thereby cutting the overall award to $25.267 million. Bayer plans to file an appeal, according to the below statement provided by Lord:

"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. Bayer plans to file an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit."

Chhabria is the federal judge tasked with a collection of at least 1,000 lawsuits over Roundup, some of which are class action. In May, he appointed mediator Ken Feinberg to try to work out a settlement.

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— Bay City News Service contributed to this report.