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 The large punitive damages award is likely to be reduced due to U.S.
Supreme Court rulings that limit the ratio of punitive to
compensatory damages to 9:1. The jury awarded a total of $2 billion
in punitive damages and $55 million in compensatory damages.
It was the third consecutive U.S. jury verdict against the company
in litigation over the chemical, which Bayer acquired as part of its
$63 billion purchase of Monsanto last year. Both other jury verdicts
also came in California, one in state court and one in federal
court.
The jury in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland on Monday said
the company was liable for plaintiffs Alva and Alberta Pilliod's
contracting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a spokeswoman for the couple
said.
It awarded $18 million in compensatory and $1 billion in punitive
damages to Alva Pilliod, and $37 million in compensatory and $1
billion in punitive damages to his wife, Alberta Pilliod. The jury
found Roundup had been defectively designed, that the company failed
to warn of the herbicide's cancer risk and that the company acted
negligently.
The German chemicals giant faces more than 13,400 U.S. lawsuits over
the herbicide's alleged cancer risk.
The next jury trial in the glyphosate litigation is scheduled for
August in Missouri state court, the first time a jury outside of
California will hear a Roundup case. The trial will take place in
St. Louis County, where Monsanto's former headquarters are located.
Bayer in a statement on Monday said it was disappointed with the
verdict and will appeal. A spokesman called the jury's decision
"excessive and unjustifiable."
The company said both Alva and Alberta Pilliod had long histories of
illnesses known to be substantial risk factors for non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma.
"The contrast between today's verdict and (U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's) conclusion that there are 'no risks to public
health from the current registered uses of glyphosate' could not be
more stark," Bayer said.
Bayer says that decades of studies by the company and independent
scientists have shown glyphosate and Roundup to be safe for human
use. Bayer also points to several regulators around the world that
found that glyphosate was not carcinogenic to humans.
Brent Wisner, a lawyer for the Pilliods, at a news conference
following the verdict said Bayer had to take responsibility for its
product.
"Monsanto keeps denying that it causes cancer and these two fine
people here are casualties of that deception," Wisner said, standing
next to the California couple, who are in their 70s.
Alberta Pilliod called on Bayer to add a warning label to Roundup,
saying she and her husband would not have used the product had it
alerted them to a cancer risk. "We've been fighting cancer for more
than nine years now and we can't do any of the things we wanted to
do. We really resent Monsanto for that," Pilliod said.
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The prior two jury verdicts against Bayer in U.S. Roundup trials
triggered steep declines in Bayer shares.
A San Francisco state court jury in August 2018 awarded $289 million
to a California groundskeeper, finding Monsanto's glyphosate-based
weed killers caused his cancer. That award was later reduced to $78
million and is on appeal.
In March, a federal jury in San Francisco awarded $80 million to
another California man after finding Roundup caused his cancer. The
company also said it would appeal that decision.
Adam Zimmerman, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles,
on Monday said it was too early to speculate about a potential
settlement of the litigation by Bayer.
"The legal questions on appeal in the previous two cases will
ultimately inform how this litigation proceeds," Zimmerman said. It
also remains to be seen how juries in other part of the country
react to the evidence in upcoming trials, he said.
Shareholders have rebuked the company's top management over its
handling of the Monsanto acquisition and the litigation it
inherited, which has wiped around 30 billion euros ($33.68 billion)
from Bayer's market value since the first jury verdict.
The Pilliods allege the regular use of Roundup on their property
between 1975 and 2011 caused them to develop cancers of the lymph
system.
They filed their lawsuit in 2017 after being diagnosed with cancer
in 2011 and 2015, respectively. Both of them are currently in
remission, but their trial had been expedited due to the risk of a
relapse and potentially short life expectancy.
Plaintiffs in the litigation allege that Monsanto had known about
the herbicide's cancer risk for decades, but failed to warn
consumers and instead attempted to influence scientists and
regulators to receive favorable assessments of its products. Bayer
denies those allegations.
Lawsuits are largely based on a 2015 conclusion by the World Health
Organization's cancer arm, which classified glyphosate as "probably
carcinogenic to humans."
A 2017 Reuters investigation https://www.reuters.com/article/us-who-iarc-glyphosate-specialreport/in-glyphosate-review-who-cancer-agency-edited-out-non-carcinogenic-findings-idUSKBN1CO251
found that the World Health Organization's International Agency for
Research on Cancer had dismissed and edited out "non-carcinogenic"
findings that were at odds with its final conclusion that the
chemical probably causes cancer.
The U.S. EPA, the European Chemicals Agency and other regulators
have found that glyphosate is not likely carcinogenic to humans.
(Reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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