Jury's $857 Million PCB Verdict for Sky Valley School Students and Parents

Sky Valley Education Center is a small alternative school program in Monroe, Washington, in Snohomish County. Its classrooms were lit by fluorescent fixtures containing polychlorinated biphenyls, industrial chemicals Monsanto manufactured for decades before the United States banned them in 1979. Teachers and students had watched brown, oily liquid seep from the light fixtures for years, and staff put trash cans underneath and told pupils to keep away. Families and staff who spent years in the aging building later developed serious health problems they attributed to the exposure, and seven of them, five former students and two parent volunteers, sued Monsanto and its successor Pharmacia in King County Superior Court.

Their case was one of a series of trials brought by groups of Sky Valley plaintiffs under the master case Bard v. Monsanto Company, filed in King County Superior Court in Seattle in 2018 on behalf of dozens of students, parents and staff connected to the school. This trial group's lead plaintiffs were Angela Bard, who had volunteered at Sky Valley, and her daughter Jessica Bard, a former student. The trial ran roughly two months, with Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018, defending the case. Jurors heard evidence on how PCBs leaked from the school's light fixtures for years and what the company had known about the chemicals' toxicity.

The plaintiffs said the exposure left them with brain damage, nervous system dysfunction, autoimmune disease and other neurological problems. On December 18, 2023, the jury agreed, finding Monsanto and Pharmacia liable for supplying a defective product and failing to warn of its dangers. It awarded $857 million in all: $73 million in compensatory damages and $784 million in punitive damages, spread across the seven plaintiffs. Angela Bard was awarded $119 million and Jessica Bard $127 million, with the five other plaintiffs sharing the rest. Plaintiffs' attorney Michael Wampold of Peterson Wampold Rosato Feldman Luna told a reporter that his clients 'would happily trade all the money they were awarded if they could get their health back.'

Bayer said it would appeal and pursue post-trial motions to cut the award, arguing the damages were arbitrary and excessive and could not survive constitutional scrutiny. On April 23, 2024, King County Superior Court Judge Jim Rogers left the $73 million compensatory award in place but reduced the punitive damages from $784 million to $365 million, a five-to-one ratio, following a Missouri law capping punitive damages at that ratio. Washington generally bars punitive damages, but Missouri law applied because Monsanto is based there. The reduction brought the total verdict to $438 million. Wampold said his clients 'would gladly trade either the original amount or this reduced amount for their health.'

Monsanto argued the judge had not cut the award far enough and pressed its appeal. The wider Sky Valley litigation then moved toward resolution. In August 2025 Monsanto announced agreements in principle covering more than 200 Sky Valley plaintiffs on confidential terms, while expressly leaving out the jury verdicts already on appeal, which it put at nine cases covering 49 plaintiffs. In October 2025 the Washington Supreme Court ruled for the plaintiffs in Erickson, the first Sky Valley case tried, reinstating that verdict, and Monsanto settled Erickson that December. On February 17, 2026, Bayer said Monsanto had settled the eight remaining Sky Valley PCB verdicts on confidential terms. Bayer did not name the individual cases, and no appellate ruling in this case was ever reported.