The roughly $80.27 million figure was the jury’s initial award to Edwin Hardeman in a 2019 federal Roundup trial in California. It was not the amount ultimately affirmed: the district court reduced punitive damages, and the Ninth Circuit upheld a judgment of about $25.27 million in 2021. The Supreme Court declined to review the case in 2022.
What was the $80 million Roundup verdict?
Edwin Hardeman sued Monsanto, the maker of Roundup, alleging that long-term exposure to the pesticide caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that the company failed to warn users about the alleged risk. The jury found for Hardeman in this product-liability case. The Ninth Circuit described Roundup as a pesticide whose active ingredient is glyphosate.
The trial took place in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Although it is often called the second major glyphosate trial after the 2018 Johnson case, it was the first bellwether trial in the federal multidistrict litigation. It was not a California state-court trial. The Ninth Circuit later summarized the result: “The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of Edwin Hardeman in his action alleging that Monsanto’s pesticide, Roundup, caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” Read the Ninth Circuit’s 2021 opinion.
How the damages changed
The $80 million headline refers to the jury’s combined initial award, not the final judgment. The district court reduced the punitive-damages amount; the compensatory award remained unchanged.
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| Stage | Compensatory damages | Punitive damages | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jury’s initial award | $5,267,634.10 | $75 million | About $80.27 million |
| After district court reduction; affirmed by Ninth Circuit | $5,267,634.10 | $20 million | About $25.27 million |
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the reduced judgment on May 14, 2021. Monsanto disputed the verdict and said it would appeal, arguing that the trial involved legal and evidentiary errors; that was the company’s position, not a court finding. Bayer’s statement on the Hardeman verdict.
Was the award upheld, and is the case still open?
The Ninth Circuit upheld the reduced judgment in 2021. Monsanto then sought Supreme Court review, but the Supreme Court declined the petition in 2022, leaving that judgment in place. That was the endpoint of Hardeman’s federal appeal. Supreme Court docket for Monsanto Co. v. Hardeman.
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Later Roundup cases are separate proceedings, not revisions to Hardeman’s award. Bayer’s 2025 annual report says a California appellate court upheld an approximately $28 million judgment against Monsanto in the separate Dennis case in November 2025. The same report lists US$11.3 billion (€9.6 billion) in provisions and liabilities for glyphosate litigation as of December 31, 2025. That is Bayer’s company-reported accounting figure, not a Hardeman damages figure or an estimate of total potential exposure. Bayer’s 2025 annual report.
In June 2026, the Supreme Court decided Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, a different Roundup failure-to-warn case. The Associated Press reported that the Court held federal law bars the state-law failure-to-warn claim at issue there. That decision was not in Hardeman’s case; its effect should not be treated as a ruling that resolves every pending Roundup lawsuit. Associated Press report on the Durnell decision.
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What the verdict does—and does not—establish
The jury’s decision resolved Hardeman’s claims on the evidence and legal issues in his trial. It is not, by itself, a universal scientific determination that glyphosate causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma, nor does the judgment establish the outcome of other people’s lawsuits. The verdict, the later reduction in damages, and the appellate rulings are distinct parts of this individual case.
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