A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a $25 million judgment and trial verdict finding Bayer’s Roundup caused a California resident’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma, dealing a blow to the chemical company’s hopes of limiting its legal risk over the weed-killer. The trial judge did not misapply the law when he allowed the lawsuit by Edwin Hardeman to go to trial, as Bayer has argued, according to a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
A jury in 2019 awarded Hardeman $5 million in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages. The punitive award was later cut to $20 million, and the appeals court also upheld the reduction.