Bader Farms, Inc. v. BASF Corporation, No. 20-3665 (8th Cir. 2022)
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Monsanto Company and BASF Corporation began developing dicamba-tolerant seed and sued each other over intellectual property. When the USDA deregulated Monsanto’s dicamba-tolerant soybean seed that year, Monsanto began to sell it. BASF’s lower-volatility dicamba herbicide was approved in 2017. Bader Farms, Inc. sued Monsanto and BASF for negligent design and failure to warn, alleging its peach orchards were damaged by dicamba drift. The jury awarded compensatory damages and punitive damages based on Monsanto’s acts.
The district court denied Defendants’ motions for a new trial and judgment as a matter of law but reduced punitive damages to $60 million. The district court’s judgment also held Monsanto and BASF jointly and severally liable for the punitive damages.
Defendants appealed, arguing that Bader failed to prove causation, the measure of actual damages is the value of the land rather than lost profits, Bader’s lost profits estimate was speculative, and the punitive damages award was unwarranted under Missouri law and excessive under the United States Constitution.
The Eighth Circuit held that Bader established causation by showing Defendants' conduct was both the cause in fact and the proximate cause of Bader's injury. Further, the district court properly refused to find intervening cause as a matter of law or to give an affirmative converse on the issue. However, the evidence established different degrees of culpability between BASF and Monsanto, and the district court should have instructed the jury to separately assess punitive damages against each of them; therefore, the court remanded with directions to hold a new trial only on the issue of punitive damages.
Court Description: [Benton, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Kelly, Circuit Judge] Civil case - Torts. Bader Farms sued Monsanto and BASF for negligent design and failure to warn, alleging its peach orchards were damaged by defendants' dicamba pesticide; a jury awarded Bader $15 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages; the district court later remitted the punitive damages to $60 million. Defendants appeal. Under Missouri law, Bader established causation by showing defendants' conduct was both the cause in fact and the proximate cause of Bader's injury; the spraying of dicamba by third-party farmers did not so interrupt the chain of events initiated by Monsanto's sale of dicamba-resistant cotton seed that the question of proximate cause was not for the jury; the district court properly refused to find intervening cause as a matter of law or to give an affirmative converse on the issue; with respect to the compensatory damage instruction, because Bader owned the peach trees, but not the land, the district court properly instructed the jury to measure compensatory damages by lost profits rather than changes in land value; considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury verdict, there was an adequate basis for the lost profits award; because the record does not support a finding that BASF had any voice, much less an equal voice over critical aspects of the defendants' enterprise, Bader's joint-venture claims fail as a matter of law; probative facts supported the jury conclusion that Monsanto and BASF participated in a conspiracy to use unlawful means to increase the sale of dicamba-resistant cotton seed; as a member of the conspiracy, BASF is jointly and severally liable for Bader's actual damages; the district court did not err in submitting punitive damages to the jury as Bader provided clear and convincing evidence that defendants acted with reckless indifference; however, the evidence established different degrees of culpability between BASF and Monsanto, and the district court should have instructed the jury to separately assess punitive damages against each of them; therefore, the punitive damages award is vacated, and the matter is remanded with directions to hold a new trial only on the issue of punitive damages.
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