Judge Upholds Monsanto Cancer Verdict, Reduces Award To $78M
CALIFORNIA (CBSDFW.COM) - A California judge upheld a jury's verdict Monday in a lawsuit against the maker of the popular weed killer Roundup.
Jurors in August found Monsanto's weed killer caused cancer in a California groundskeeper.
The Northern California judge, however, did reduce the award from $289 million to $78 million, according to the Associated Press.
The case was the first lawsuit to go to trial that alleges the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, causes cancer.
Monsanto faces thousands of similar lawsuits across the United States.
Several North Texans have sued Monsanto claiming Roundup caused them to get sick.
According to the Associated Press, in a tentative ruling earlier this month, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos said she was considering wiping out the punitive damage award because there appeared to be no evidence that Monsanto ignored evidence that the weed killer caused cancer.
On Monday, Bolanos reduced the punitive damages to $39 million.
Last year, the CBS 11 I-Team sat down with Monsanto's vice president, Scott Partridge, at the company's headquarters in St. Louis.
Partridge told the I-Team he is confident that Roundup is safe.
"Glyphosate has been around for about 40 years. It has a record of safe use over those four decades and has been the most studied agricultural chemical in history," Partridge said in a 2017 interview with CBS 11 News.
