High court rejects Monsanto appeal

those damages to four times the amount of compensation in most cases.

Earlier in 2019, a San Francisco Superior Court jury awarded nearly $290 million in compensation and punitive damages to Dewayne “Lee” Johnson of Vallejo, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer after spraying the chemical as a groundskeeper for the Benicia Unified School District. Courts later reduced the damages to $21.5 million.

Alva and Alberta Pilliod of Livermore, who developed cancer after using the herbicide for 30 years, were awarded $2 billion by a jury, an amount reduced to $86.2 million by the courts.

Monsanto is appealing both verdicts.

In a May 2021 ruling upholding Hardeman’s verdict, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said federal law requires products to carry warnings that are “necessary and adequate to protect health.” The court said the EPA’s approval did not carry the force of law, and did not preclude a judge or jury from deciding whether Monsanto had violated a California law requiring warnings against risks that are “known or knowable.”

In its Supreme Court appeal, Monsanto said Hardeman was last exposed to Roundup in 2012, three years before the international agency classified glyphosate as a likely human carcinogen — a conclusion the company argued was contrary to “the near-universal scientific and regulatory consensus.” The company said the EPA had found a cancer warning unwarranted after “exhaustively studying glyphosate for decades.”

The high court denied review of the case without comment. Bayer said afterward that the court’s action “undermines the ability of companies to rely on official actions taken by expert regulatory agencies, as it permits every U.S. state to require a different product label.”

The case is Monsanto v. Hardeman, 21-241.