Judge halves $784M for women exposed to Monsanto chemicals at Monroe school

MONROE — A judge Tuesday more than halved the hundreds of millions of dollars awarded months ago to seven women who claimed exposure to harmful Monsanto-manufactured chemicals at the Sky Valley Education Center.

After a two-month trial in December, a King County jury awarded the women $784 million in punitive damages and $73 million in compensatory damages, a staggering sum that rivaled the combined total of all previous cases over exposure at the Monroe school.

Not long after, Monsanto’s lawyers returned to court, arguing the “arbitrary and excessive” damages “cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny.”

The Monsanto lawyers, Jennifer Campbell and Hunter Ahern, pushed King County Superior Court Judge Jim Rogers to make equal the punitive and compensatory damages. The initial award from the jury had a ratio of over 10-to-1 punitive to compensatory.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/judge-halves-784m-for-women-exposed-to-monsanto-chemicals-at-monroe-school/