(Reuters) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected another Bayer AG bid to dismiss litigation alleging that its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer as the German pharmaceutical and chemical giant tries to avoid potentially billions of dollars in damages.
The justices turned away a Bayer appeal and left in place a lower court decision upholding an $87 million judgment awarded in a lawsuit in California to Alberta and Alva Pilliod, who were diagnosed with cancer after spraying Roundup for more than three decades. The Supreme Court on June 21 rejected a Bayer appeal in a different Roundup case.
Bayer has argued that the cancer claims over Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate go against sound science and product clearance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Bayer's appeal in the Pilliod case raised an additional challenge, arguing that it would violate the U.S. Constitution's due process protections to award punitive damages that far outweigh compensatory damages.
Alva and Alberta Pilliod both were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of lymph cancer, after decades of using Roundup. A California judge in 2020 reduced the $2 billion jury award in the case to $87 million. California's top court last year ruled against Bayer’s appeal of the $87 million award.