Judge reduces award in Round Up cancer case

According to an article published by the Associated Press, a judge has cut a jury award in a lawsuit that found that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide caused cancer in a California couple from $2.055 billion to $87 million, the third time a judge has reduced an award in a lawsuit over the disputed chemical.

The judge said Thursday that evidence supports the jury’s conclusion that Roundup was “a substantial factor” in causing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in Alva and Alberta Pilliod, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith said evidence also supported the finding that Monsanto knew the herbicide’s active ingredient, glyphosate, could be dangerous and failed to warn the couple from Livermore, California.

But Smith said the punitive damages were much higher than constitutional limits set by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has said should generally be no more than four times the amount of damages awarded as compensation to victims.

Read the full story from AP here.