Judge reduces Sonoma Co. man's $80 million award from Monsanto to $25 million

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday reduced an $80 million award levied against Monsanto Co. to $25 million for a Sonoma County man who claimed the company's Roundup weedkiller caused his non-Hodgkins' lymphoma.

RELATED: Bay Area man awarded $80 million after a jury said Roundup caused his cancer

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria upheld a jury award of approximately $5 million in compensatory damages to Edwin Hardeman, 70, of Santa Rosa, but said that guidelines in a 2013 Supreme Court decision required him to reduce the jury's $75 million in punitive damages to $20 million.

The ruling leaves Hardeman's total award at $25,267,634. His case was the first to go to trial of more than 1,000 federal lawsuits against Monsanto nationwide.

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