Dicamba Verdict Adds to Bayer’s Herbicide Headaches (1)

Bayer and BASF’s recent legal defeat over drifting pesticides could encourage more farmers to file lawsuits, according to plaintiffs attorneys.

A federal jury slapped the companies with $265 million in compensatory and punitive damages in a case involving Bill Bader, a Missouri peach farmer who claimed that dicamba, a potent weedkiller, killed his trees when it drifted onto his property from neighboring fields.

Bader is far from the only farmer claiming that dicamba’s high volatility and tendency to drift make it an agriculture hazard. Thousands of farmers have reported crop damages since 2015, raising the specter of a ballooning legal ...