SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A jury on Monday ordered agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. to pay a combined $2.055 billion to a couple claiming that the company’s popular weed killer Roundup Ready caused their cancers.

The jury’s verdict is the third such courtroom loss for Monsanto in California since August, but a San Francisco law professor said it’s likely a trial judge or appellate court will significantly reduce the punitive damage award.

The state court jury in Oakland concluded that Monsanto’s weed killer caused the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma Alva Pilliod and Alberta Pilliod each contracted. Jurors awarded them each $1 billion in punitive damages in addition to a combined $55 million in compensatory damages.

A federal jury in San Francisco ordered the weed killer maker in March to pay a Sonoma County man $80 million. A San Francisco jury last August awarded $289 million to a former golf course greens keeper who blamed his cancer on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready herbicide. A judge later reduced the award by $200 million.

The three California trials were the first of an estimated 13,000 plaintiffs with pending lawsuits against Monsanto across the country to go to trial. St. Louis-based Monsanto is owned by the German chemical giant Bayer A.G.

Bayer said Monday that it would appeal the verdict.

“The verdict in this trial has no impact on future cases and trials, as each one has its own factual and legal circumstances,” the company said.

The company noted that none of the California verdicts has been considered by an appeals court and that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers the weed killer safe.

The EPA reaffirmed its position in April, saying that the active ingredient glyphosate found in the weed killer posed “no risks of concern” for people exposed to it by any means — on farms, in yards and along roadsides, or as residue left on food crops.

“There is zero chance it will stand,” said University of California, Hastings School of Law professor David Levine. He said the ratio between the $2 billion in punitive damages and $55 million in compensatory damages is too high. He said judges rarely allow punitive damages to exceed four times actual damages awarded.

The California Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that any punitive damages exceeding 10 times the compensatory damages are likely unconstitutionally high. The court didn’t propose a ratio it felt correct, but said punitive damages should almost never exceed nine times actual damages, it said.

The punitive damages awarded Monday are 36 times the actual damages.

The lawsuits have battered Bayer’s stock since it purchased Monsanto for $63 billion last year and Bayer’s top managers are facing shareholder discontent.

Chairman Werner Wenning told shareholders at Bayer’s annual general meeting in Bonn last month that company leaders “very much regret” falls in its share price. At the same time, CEO Werner Baumann insisted that “the acquisition of Monsanto was and remains the right move for Bayer.”

Bayer’s stock price closed Monday at $15.91 a share, down 45 cents or 2.76 percent per share, in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The verdict was announced after the trading session closed.

Bayer’s share price has lost half its value since it reached s 52-week high of $32.80 a share.

SUNNY ISLES BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The Latest on a series of arrests connected to a South Florida hip-hop festival.

Authorities say Phoenix Suns forward and former University of Kansas basketball player Josh Jackson was arrested after refusing to leave a VIP area at a South Florida hip-hop festival.

A Miami-Dade police report says Jackson was arrested Friday night and charged with resisting arrest and escape at the Rolling Loud Festival, which was held Friday through Sunday at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. Police are investigating connections between the festival and a series of shooting that killed a Chicago rapper, wounded another rapper’s girlfriend, left a bystander dead and injured a little boy.

An officer says Jackson was told to leave a VIP because he didn’t have a pass. The report says Jackson left, returned and then refused to leave, prompting the officer to handcuff Jackson and remove him from the area.

The report says Jackson was told to sit on a golf cart but ran away when the officer wasn’t looking. Jackson was located a short time later and taken to jail.

Jackson was released Saturday on $1,000 bail. His next hearing in June 10.

Jackson played the 2016-17 season for the Kansas Jayhawks before he was selected as the fourth overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft.

 

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — A 21-year-old Kansas man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in a fatal robbery at a Joplin home in 2017.

Brock Robinson was sentenced Monday for second-degree murder, first-degree robbery and first-degree assault. He is the second of three men from Columbus, Kansas, sentenced in the fatal shooting of 21-year-old Taven Williams and the wounding of another man.

A sentencing hearing for 21-year-old Azaiah Forester is scheduled for June 10. The third defendant, 23-year-old Erik Jones, was sentenced in November to 15 years in prison.

Police say Williams was killed in January 2017 when he tried to stop the three men from robbing another man of a large amount of marijuana. The target of the robbery was wounded.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Lawmakers in the Conservative Caucus are blocking work from getting done in the Missouri Senate in protest of a proposed incentives package for General Motors.

The group of Republican senators took turns filibustering overnight and into Tuesday morning.

At issue is an effort by Gov. Mike Parson and others to pass a deal offering GM up to $50 million in tax credits to expand an eastern Missouri plant that makes trucks and vans.

The deal hit a snag when Parson tried to pair it with another tax incentive program and a new scholarship. Both are among the Republican governor’s top priorities this session.

Senate Conservative Caucus members only want to pass the GM tax incentives, not the governor’s other priorities.

Lawmakers face a Friday deadline to pass bills.

JACKSON COUNTY — One person died in an accident just after 7p.m. Monday in Jackson County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Chevrolet passenger vehicle driven by June E. Lamothe, 68, Kansas City, Mo., was westbound in the eastbound lanes of MO 350 just east of Sterling. The Chevy struck a 2008 Jeep driven by Isaiah S. Miles, 21, Raytown, head-on.

Lamothe was pronounced dead at the scene. Miles refused treatment at the scene. The MSHP did not have information on Lamothe’s seat belt usage.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers have passed a bill that could give parents and guardians greater rights in end-of-life decisions involving children.

The House gave final approval Monday to “Simon’s Law” — named for a St. Louis boy with a rare genetic disorder who died at 3 months old in 2010. His parents said they discovered later that hospital employees did not try to save their son’s life because a doctor had issued a do-not-resuscitate order without their knowledge.

The legislation prohibits medical personnel from instituting do-not-resuscitate orders for those younger than 18 without the consent of at least one parent or legal guardian.

Simon’s mother, Sheryl Crosier, emotionally thanked Missouri lawmakers Monday as she watched them vote on the bill.

Kansas became the first state to enact a similar law in 2017.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A court document reveals lurid details of sexual abuse allegedly committed against inmates by a former dental lab instructor at the Topeka Correctional Facility.

The suspect, 73-year-old Tomas Co, is facing seven chargesof unlawful sexual relations with seven different inmates at the women’s prison. The affidavit is based on interviews with 25 inmates during an investigation by a Kansas corrections department special agent. It says Co flaunted his authority over inmates, touched them inappropriately and removed the pockets of his pants to allow one inmate to touch him sexually.

A judge made the affidavit public Friday after The Topeka Capital-Journal asked for its release.

Co taught inmates to make dentures in a program designed to teach them a marketable skill. He was fired in December.

His attorney, Chris Joseph, said no one has independently verified the women’s stories.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Law enforcement officials say 219 people were arrested and 583 warrants were cleared during a crime-fighting initiative in Kansas City, Kansas.

The effort involving local, state and federal agencies was called Operation Lateral Storm.

Police Chief Terry Zeigler said Monday the task force ran from March 1 until the end of April and targeted gang, drug and gun activity. Officers concentrated on five districts with the most crime in the city.

Officers investigated drugs being smuggled in Kansas City, Kansas when it led to a search warrant at a residence.  Approximately 13 pounds of methamphetamine and 2 kilo’s of Heroin seized! Great bust!! pic.twitter.com/g5qOFQjsJr

— Terry Zeigler (@KCKPDChief) April 23, 2019

Zeigler said this type of operation has a long-term impact on crime because it targets the worst criminals and results in them getting long prison sentences.

The initiative had a budget of $60,000 to cover overtime for officers. It falls under the U.S. Marshals’ nationwide crime reduction initiative called Operation Triple Beam.

KANSAS CITY, KAN. – A Kansas man was sentenced Monday to 121 months in federal prison for receiving and distributing child pornography, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister. In addition, the defendant was ordered to pay $6,500 in restitution.

Pedro Zamora, 36, Leavenworth, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of receipt and distribution of child pornography. In his plea, he admitted that investigators found 127 videos and 1,900 images containing child pornography on a computer in his home. He used file sharing programs to collect and distribute the images.

Zamora told investigators he began searching for child pornography on the internet when he was in middle school.

BENTON, Mo. (AP) — A southeast Missouri county has paid $175,000 to a father after a deputy who had been fired from two previous policing jobs was charged with having sexual contact with a teenager in a patrol car.

The settlement stems from the second-degree statutory sodomy case that is pending against 30-year-old Brandon Cook. He was arrested in May 2018 and is accused of having sexual contact with a 15-year-old boy whose father was a commissioned reserve officer with the Scott County Sheriff’s Department at the time.

 

Cook previously had been fired by police departments in Caruthersville and Hayti. Cook’s license to work as law enforcement officer in the state has been suspended.