Updated: June 18, 2019 / 11:08 a.m.
On Monday, at the Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland, the German drugmaker and chemicals company blamed the massive verdict on “inflammatory, fabricated and irrelevant evidence” from the couples’ lawyers.
“The resulting trial focused not on ascertaining the truth regarding the state of the science, causation, and compliance with legal duties, but instead on vilifying Monsanto in the abstract,” the company, which bought Monsanto last year for a whopping $63 billion, said in motions filed with the court.
Bayer is currently facing Roundup cancer lawsuits by more than 13,400 plaintiffs across the United States. The company denies the allegations against them, claiming that the weed killer and its active ingredient glyphosate, is safe for people to use.
The verdict and two prior jury decisions against Bayer AG have triggered steep declines in Bayer shares, leaving it with a market valuation of $56 billion.
Bayer requested the Superior Court Judge, Winifred Smith, who presided over the roughly seven-week long trial, to reverse the jury decision and enter judgment in Bayer’s favor, or order a new trial.
On May 13, the Oakland jury awarded more than $2 billion to both Alva and Alberta Pilliod, finding their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma to have been related to using the Roundup to kill weeds on their property between the years of 1975 and 2011.
The jury granted $18 million in compensatory and $1 billion in punitive damages to Alva Pilliod, and $37 million in compensatory and $1 billion in punitive damages to his wife, Alberta.
Michael Miller, who is a lawyer for the Pilliods, said in a statement on Tuesday that the verdict would be sustained.