Sanctions for Attorney in Monsanto Roundup Case Reversed

An attorney in a multimillion-dollar case over allegations that Monsanto Co.‘s Roundup pesticide caused cancer was wrongly sanctioned for trial misconduct, the Ninth Circuit said Wednesday.

The suit was brought by Edwin Hardeman, who said years of exposure to Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered Bayer’s Monsanto to pay over $25 million in damages last year, cutting a jury award of over $80 million.

The district court sanctioned Hardeman’s attorneys Aimee Wagstaff of Andrus Wagstaff PC and Jennifer Moore of Moore Law Group PLLC based on Wagstaff’s opening statement. Specifically, the court said Wagstaff told the jury what Phase 2 of the trial would involve “despite a clear understanding among the parties that this would be off limits” and violated pretrial rulings that limited admissible evidence.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the $500 sanction on Moore, finding the court wrongly ascribed Wagstaff’s conduct to her even though Moore didn’t have authority to supervise Wagstaff.

“According to the court, Moore intentionally joined in Wagstaff’s bad-faith misconduct,” the Ninth Circuit said. “But Wagstaff claimed all responsibility for the opening statement and stated that no one had the authority to edit, delete, or add phase 1 slides without her permission.”

The Ninth Circuit said the lower court didn’t show Moore violated its orders or acted in bad faith.

The lower court also cited attorney letters to the court concerning the pretrial rulings that allegedly indicated bad faith on Moore’s part. But the Ninth Circuit said the letters “uniformly expressed a desire to abide by the pretrial evidentiary rulings, supporting an inference of good faith attempts at compliance.”

The appeals court affirmed the sanction on Wagstaff.

Judges Michael Daly Hawkins, N. Randy Smith, and Ryan D. Nelson wrote the joint opinion.

Moore Law Group PLLC, Andrus Wagstaff PC, and Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman represent Hardeman. Wilkinson Walsh LLP and Hollingsworth LLP represent Monsanto.

The case is Hardeman v. Monsanto, 9th Cir., No. 19-16253, unpublished 10/28/20.