The Monsanto Co. manufacturing facility in Antwerp, Belgium. Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg

Bayer AG has asked a federal judge to toss last month's $265 million verdict, insisting that the jury found no evidence that Monsanto Co.'s dicamba herbicide caused economic damages to a peach farmer's orchard.

In a motion for judgment or new trial filed on Friday, Bayer said the jury relied on a "novel theory of liability" under Missouri law in finding Monsanto liable. In a separate motion, Bayer called the jury's $250 million in punitive damages excessive, unconstitutional and "the result of passion and prejudice," with statements comparing Monsanto "with violent criminals" and disclosing the company's net worth.

"This astronomical award far exceeds anything that could be justified based on the conduct at issue at the level of compensatory damages," wrote Liz Blackwell, a partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner in St. Louis. "The fact that the jury awarded $50 million more than requested further reflects that plaintiff's counsel successfully stoked the passions of the jury."

In an emailed statement about the post-trial motions, Monsanto said, "Helping farmers safely and successfully grow healthy crops is what we do, and of course we have deep empathy for any farmer who experiences crop losses. In this case, we believe that the jury's verdict is inconsistent with the evidence and the law, and that the Court should set aside the verdict or at least order a new trial."

Don Downing, a partner at Gray, Ritter & Graham in St. Louis who is lead counsel in the dicamba MDL, did not return a call for comment.

About 100 farmers have sued Monsanto over dicamba herbicide. The case that went to trial involved Bader Farms and stands apart from dozens of other lawsuits pending in multidistrict litigation before U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh of the Eastern District of Missouri, primarily because it was the first one filed and featured a peach orchard, not a soybean field.

A consolidated complaint alleges Bayer and BASF, which both released their dicamba herbicides in 2017, created an "ecological disaster."

In a key finding, the judge ruled in the Bader Farms case, later expanding his decision to all the lawsuits, that plaintiffs could sue Monsanto for crop damages caused in 2015 and 2016, even though its dicamba was not yet on the market. At that time, farmers could plant Monsanto's genetically modified seeds, which were resistant to dicamba. Limbaugh found that Monsanto should have foreseen farmers would spray BASF's older dicamba herbicide, which was unapproved for spraying over crops and prone to drift into neighboring fields.

Bayer, in its post-trial motion, said the jury could not hold Monsanto responsible for the actions of third parties using another company's product. Monsanto had warned consumers not to use older dicamba products on its seed.

"Missouri law does not permit liability based on an expectation that consumers will violate the law and misuse your product—let alone someone else's product," Blackwell wrote.

Bayer also raised federal preemption defenses and instructional errors, and challenged the lost profits that Bader Farms claimed. Bayer insisted that the plaintiff had failed to prove that Monsanto had conspired with BASF.

BASF, another defendant in the trial, represented by John Mandler, a partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath in Minneapolis, raised similar arguments in its post-trial motions, as well as moved to strike all punitive damages against it.

"First, we point out that throughout the trial, Missouri law and well-established legal precedent were not followed," BASF said in a statement. "Second, we seek to reverse the court's finding that BASF is jointly liable for punitive damages solely assigned to Monsanto by the jury. BASF and Monsanto are separate legal entities and competitors, and BASF should not be punished for Monsanto's conduct."

In separate litigation, Bayer also is appealing nearly $2.4 billion in verdicts tied to Monsanto's Roundup. About 42,700 lawsuits allege that that herbicide caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma.