[ad_1]
Roundup no Glyphospahte weed killer spray plastic containers on shelf in garden center, UK. (Photo by: Geography Photos / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
- Bayer said the decision not to file a new appeal of the verdict won by a school groundskeeper after a state appeals court reduced it to $ 20.5 million was made after “careful and extensive consideration.”
- The Roundup litigation, which the plaintiffs say causes cancer, remains Bayer’s biggest challenge.
- Bayer said last month that it still expects to spend $ 9.6 billion to settle existing lawsuits over the controversial herbicide.
German multinational pharmaceutical company Bayer will not seek a US Supreme Court review of the first verdict that its Roundup herbicide caused cancer.
The company said the decision not to file a new appeal of the verdict won by a school groundskeeper after a state appeals court reduced it to $ 20.5 million was made after “careful and extensive consideration” and reflects a strategy. legal to end the state court case and instead focus on the second Roundup verdict, in federal court.
“The decision is not based on the merits of this case,” Bayer said in an emailed statement, referring to a lawsuit filed by Dewayne Johnson and decided in 2018 by a San Francisco jury. The federal case currently being reviewed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals “will serve as a best case for the Supreme Court to review,” Bayer said.
The Roundup litigation, which the plaintiffs say causes cancer, remains Bayer’s biggest challenge. After losing three lawsuits over the matter in the US, the company has been negotiating with tens of thousands of plaintiffs for more than a year and a half, and has yet to get out of litigation. Bayer insists that the product is safe.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has intervened on Bayer’s side in the federal appeals court case, in which a jury found that Roundup was defective because it was sold without a cancer warning. A lower court judge reduced the verdict from more than $ 80 million to $ 25 million, but refused to overturn the verdict.
The EPA has said it reviewed and approved the Roundup warning label issued by Monsanto, which Bayer acquired in 2018 for about $ 63 billion. In the federal case, the agency backed Bayer’s argument that plaintiff Edwin Hardeman’s attorneys ignored EPA authority and instead improperly relied on California law to claim that the omission resulted in a faulty label.
In its statement on Friday, Bayer explained that in Johnson’s case, the key issue of “federal preference” is unrelated to any lawsuit other than his own.
Hardeman’s case in federal appeals court is “a better candidate for Supreme Court review” because the ruling is expected to address “the most important federal issues in dispute in the Roundup litigation, including the preference and admissibility of expert evidence, “Bayer said.
Johnson originally received $ 289 million. Bayer later won a trial court ruling that reduced it to $ 78.6 million and then convinced the appeals court to cut another $ 58 million. While the Roundup litigation was significant before Johnson’s case went to trial, the trio of verdicts against the company fueled a frenzy of lawsuits that as of June totaled more than 125,000. Bayer is also appealing the third verdict, which was in a California state court.
Bayer said last month that it still expects to spend $ 9.6 billion to settle existing lawsuits over the controversial herbicide.
“Bayer has great sympathy for Mr. Johnson and all people fighting cancer, but continues to believe that Johnson’s verdict is not supported by evidence or law,” Bayer said.
