Lawyers for Monsanto Co.’s parent company, Bayer AG, have asked the federal judge overseeing a batch of lawsuits accusing the company’s blockbuster herbicide Roundup of causing cancer to reverse an $80 million dollar damages verdict in the first case to go to trial in the multidistrict litigation, or to grant the company a new trial.
In court papers filed Friday, Bayer’s lawyers at Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz; Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer; Hollingsworth; and Covington & Burling claim the jury’s finding that Roundup use caused Sonoma County resident Edwin Hardeman’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma runs counter to regulatory determinations and scientific evidence showing that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, doesn’t pose a cancer threat to humans when used properly. Monsanto’s lawyers also argued that U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who is overseeing the Roundup MDL, got several evidentiary rulings wrong.
