A jury in the US has ordered agribusiness giant Monsanto to pay a combined $2.055 billion dollars (£1.58bn) to a couple claiming that the company’s herbicide Roundup Ready caused their cancers.
The jury’s verdict is the third such courtroom loss for Monsanto in California since August.
But a San Francisco law professor said it is likely a trial judge or appellate court will significantly reduce the punitive damages award.
The state court jury in Oakland concluded Roundup caused the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that Alva Pilliod and Alberta Pilliod each contracted. Jurors awarded them each one billion dollars in punitive damages in addition to a combined $55m in compensatory damages.
Alberta, 76, said after the verdict that she and her husband have each been battling cancer for the last nine years.
One of the couple’s lawyers, Michael Miller, conceded the $2bn punitive damages award was likely to be reduced on appeal, but said they are prepared for a long legal battle.
The three California trials were the first of an estimated 13,000 plaintiffs with pending lawsuits against Monsanto across the country to go to trial. The St Louis-based firm is owned by the German chemical giant Bayer AG.
Bayer said it would launch an appeal against the verdict.
“The verdict in this trial has no impact on future cases and trials, as each one has its own factual and legal circumstances,” the company said.
The firm noted none of the California verdicts has been considered by an appeals court and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers the weedkiller to be safe.
The EPA reaffirmed its position in April, saying that the active ingredient glyphosate found in the weedkiller posed “no risks of concern” for people exposed to it by any means – on farms, in gardens and along roadsides, or as residue left on food crops.
“There is zero chance it will stand,” said David Levine, a professor at the University of California, Hastings School of Law.
He said the ratio between the two billion dollars in punitive damages and 55 million dollars in compensatory damages is too high. He said judges rarely allow punitive damages to exceed four times actual damages awarded.
