Bayer gets Roundup verdict slashed but has bigger woes

Bayer AG got a $79 million award against it slashed by three-quarters but failed to overturn the first jury verdict that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer.

The decision, by a California appeals court on Monday, may buttress tens of thousands of claims even after Bayer reached a settlement of almost $11 billion.

The San Francisco-based court affirmed the 2018 verdict in favor of a landscaper while cutting his award to $20.5 million. The lawsuit isn’t covered by Bayer’s broader settlement resolving 95,000 of approximately 125,000 U.S. lawsuits by Roundup users.

The court rejected the central argument Bayer is relying on to overturn all three verdicts it has lost in California. The company claims the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reviewed and approved the Roundup warning label and that the suits ignored the agency’s authority. Federal regulation of Roundup, Bayer argues, preempts California law.

The ruling may embolden settlement holdouts to demand bigger payouts and may spur more lawsuits by users of the herbicide who haven’t gotten sick yet, said Anna Pavlik, a senior counsel at investment adviser United First Partners in New York.

“This risk is precisely what likely drove Bayer to settle some of the current cases before the appeal decision was announced,” she said.

Bayer, maintaining that Roundup isn’t cancerous, appealed the three verdicts, which resulted in a total of $191 million in damages, none of it covered by the settlement. Roundup users in all three cases convinced juries that under California law the company had failed to properly warn users that Roundup’s use can cause cancer.

Monday’s decision isn’t the last word on the issue. Bayer can still appeal to the California Supreme Court, and it may have better luck pressing similar arguments before a federal appeals court over another verdict.

In an emailed statement, Bayer lauded the appeals court’s reduction of the sum, adding that it continues to believe the verdict and damages awards are “inconsistent with the evidence at trial and the law” and that it’s considering an appeal.

“We continue to stand strongly behind the safety and utility of Roundup, a position supported by four decades of extensive science and favorable assessments by leading health regulators worldwide,” Bayer said.

Mike Miller, who represented the landscaper, Lee Johnson, at trial, said the ruling came as no surprise given the tenor of oral arguments before the court last month.

“We’re very happy for Mr. Johnson that the court validated his claim,” Miller said. He declined to comment on the slashed award.

Johnson initially won $289 million, later cut down by a lower-court judge to $78.5 million.