A federal judge has cut a damages award Bayer owed a California man who blamed Roundup weed killer for his cancer, to $25.27m from $80.27m.
At the same time, the judge rejected the company's bid for a new trial.
US District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco said evidence against the former Monsanto, which Bayer bought last year, supported the $5.27m in compensatory damages that a jury awarded Edwin Hardeman.
He also said the jury acted reasonably in awarding punitive damages.
Chhabria nonetheless reduced punitive damages to $20m from $75m, saying that while Monsanto "deserves to be punished" the higher award was "constitutionally impermissible" because it was nearly 15 times the compensatory damages award.
"Monsanto's conduct, while reprehensible, does not warrant a ratio of that magnitude, particularly in the absence of evidence showing intentional concealment of a known or obvious safety risk," Chhabria wrote.
Hardeman said he used Roundup for many years starting in the 1980s to treat poison oak and weeds on his property.
He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014, but is now in remission.
Hardeman is one of more than 13,400 plaintiffs who have sued Bayer and Monsanto over Roundup, saying the herbicide's active ingredient, glyphosate, is unsafe.
His case was considered a bellwether for hundreds of similar cases before Chhabria.
In a statement, Bayer called the judge's decision "a step in the right direction," but said it still plans to appeal.
Bayer said the verdict and damages award "conflict with both the weight of the extensive science that supports the safety of Roundup, and the conclusions of leading health regulators in the US and around the world that glyphosate is not carcinogenic."
Hardeman may appeal Chhabria's decision to reduce the damages award, which one of his lawyers, Michael Baum, in a statement called a "reversible error."
US Supreme Court precedents limit the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages to nine to one.
Bayer paid $63 billion for Monsanto.
Hardeman may appeal Chhabria's decision to reduce the damages award, which one of his lawyers, Michael Baum, in a statement called a "reversible error."
US Supreme Court precedents limit the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages to nine to one.
Bayer paid $63 billion for Monsanto.
