(Reuters) – Bayer AG on Monday said it has asked a U.S. federal appeals court to throw out a Ksh2. 5 billion ($25 million) judgment it was ordered to pay to a California man who blamed the company’s Roundup weed killer for his cancer.
In a filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit dated Friday, Bayer said the verdict defied regulatory findings and sound science, adding that the “speculative case” should never have made it before a jury.
Bayer in a statement said it stood behind the safety of Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate and planned to vigorously defend the more than 42,700 U.S. Roundup cancer lawsuits it faces.
In its court filing, Bayer said the Hardeman appeal had the potential to shape how every subsequent Roundup case is litigated.
The widely-used weed killer is made by Monsanto, which Bayer acquired last year for $63 billion. Bayer stock has lost about 23% in value since the first Roundup verdict for plaintiffs in August 2018.
The case on appeal before the 9th Circuit involved the claims of Edwin Hardeman, which was the third Roundup case to go to trial in a U.S. court. A jury in March ordered Monsanto to pay $80 million in damages, saying Roundup had caused the man’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The trial court judge in July reduced that verdict to $25 million.
Lawyers for Hardeman on Monday did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Bayer’s appeal.
The lawyers during the trial argued Monsanto had failed to warn consumers of Roundup’s cancer risk and said the company concealed damaging evidence from public and regulatory view. Bayer rejects those allegations.
The German company’s main appeal argument in Hardeman’s case centers on repeated findings by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that glyphosate is not a carcinogen and not a risk to public health when used in accordance with its current label.
Bayer argued it would be impossible to comply with the Hardeman verdict, a lawsuit brought under state law, because any warning label would be in conflict with guidance from a federal agency.
Some legal experts consider this preemption defense a “silver bullet” because it would stop claims across the board, but said the argument faced big hurdles on appeal.
The company also said the trial judge had committed “a host of errors” by allowing jurors to hear unreliable expert testimony.
In Kenya
Local Kenyan media have incessantly reported that the same cancer-causing weed-killer is retailing in Kenya without any effort from the government to ban it. The Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) appears to disobey court orders against the use of the chemicals.
In Kenya, agronomists and coffee marketing agents have raised the red flag over the use of harmful weed killers that are used on coffee, tea and sugarcane farms.
Bayer/Monsanto denies that the weed-killer causes cancer, but the truth is out there.
he Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek) said a mix of laxity and corruption within government agencies will continue exposing Kenyans to cancer and other risks.
“Most of these products that are said to be cancerous or have other negative impacts on consumers do actually meet the stands set by Kebs,” said Secretary General Stephen Mutoro.
Kenyan Business Feed is the top Kenyan Business Blog. We share news from Kenya and across the region. To contact us with any alert, please email us to [email protected]