News
Bayer, BASF awarded new trial to settle dicamba damages
Bayer and BASF are being awarded a new trial to set punitive damages in the case against Missouri peach producer Bader Farms who claims dicamba drift damaged its orchard.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals is vacating the $60 million of punitive damages awarded in the case because it was settled collectively. The court is now directing a new trial to award damages from Bayer and BASF separately. The court upheld the rest of the case.
Bader Farms was awarded $60 million in punitive damages by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in Cape Girardeau after an appeal lowered the initial amount of $250 million.
The defendants say the punitive damages awarded to Bader Farms were based on the defendant’s land value, not the lost profit of its crops, and was unwarranted under state law and ‘excessive’ under the U.S. Constitution.
No change was given to Bader Farms’ awarded $15 mil in compensatory damages from the initial the 2015 – 2016 trial.
