On Tuesday, a Pennsylvania judge reduced a $2.25 billion U.S. verdict against Bayer (BAYGn.DE) to $400 million. This decision involved a Pennsylvania man, John McKivison, who claimed he developed cancer from exposure to the company’s Roundup weedkiller.
A jury in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas determined that McKivison’s non-Hodgkins lymphoma resulted from using Roundup for yard work at his house for several years. The jury initially ordered Bayer to pay $250 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages.
Judge Susan Schulman granted some of Bayer’s post-trial motions, reducing compensatory damages to $50 million and punitive damages to $350 million.
Bayer announced plans to appeal to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, challenging the trial court’s decision to allow the jury to hear what it considered misleading and “inflammatory” testimony. “While the court’s decision reduces the unconstitutionally excessive damage award, we still disagree with the ruling on the liability verdict, as the trial was marred by significant and reversible errors,” a Bayer spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Bayer also urged U.S. legislative reform to protect companies whose products comply with federal labeling requirements.
We plan to appeal
McKivison’s attorneys, Tom Kline and Jason Itkin, expressed satisfaction that Schulman upheld the jury’s finding that Roundup causes cancer. However, they also plan to appeal, seeking to reinstate the $2.25 billion jury verdict. “The reduction of the amount of the jury’s verdict is a clear departure from established Pennsylvania law that we plan to address in an appeal,” Kline and Itkin said in a joint statement.
Bayer has stated that decades of studies show Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, are safe for human use. Roundup is among the most widely used weedkillers in the United States, although the company phased out its sales for home use last year.
Bayer has won 14 of the last 20 Roundup trials but experienced a string of losses in late 2023 and early 2024, resulting in more than $4 billion in verdicts. Some of these verdicts, like McKivison’s, were later reduced, but the cases ended a nine-trial winning streak for Bayer and shattered investor and company hopes that the worst of the Roundup litigation was over.
In the U.S., about 165,000 claims have been made against Bayer for personal injuries allegedly caused by Roundup, which Bayer acquired as part of its $63 billion purchase of U.S. agrochemical company Monsanto in 2018. Most plaintiffs, like McKivison, allege that the product caused non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
In 2020, Bayer settled most of the then-pending Roundup cases for up to $9.6 billion but failed to secure a settlement covering future cases. More than 50,000 claims remain pending.
