203663P.pdf   07/07/2022  Bader Farms, Inc.  v.  BASF Corporation
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  20-3663
                          and No:  20-3665
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - Cape Girardeau   
   [PUBLISHED] [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.