Bayer requested U.S. District Judge Winifred Y. Smith to reduce the $2 billion Roundup verdict, awarded to a couple, stating that they failed to prove Roundup was the cause of their cancer due to lack of supporting evidence.
On May 13, the plaintiffs were awarded more than $2 billion by the Oakland jury after finding that they were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma by using Roundup weedkiller in their property from 1975 to 2011. The jury awarded $18 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages to the husband and $37 million in compensatory and $1 billion in punitive to his wife.
Bayer, in its court filings, stated that punitive damages were excessive and requested Judge Smith to reduce the award. The punitive damages award was high as per the U.S. Supreme court rulings that limit the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages to 9:1.
In a separate case, a U.S. judge slashed the Roundup verdict awarded to a California man who blamed Roundup for his cancer, from $80 million to $25 million last week as the punitive damages component awarded was unreasonably high.
Last month, Austria headed towards the ban of Roundup and other glyphosate weed killers due to the growing concerns that exposure to the popular herbicide might be linked to cancer.
Bayer and its subsidiary, Monsanto, acquired a year ago, now face more than 15,000 Roundup lawsuits. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria is presiding over all the federal multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2741; In Re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation) in the Northern District of California.
