In October, the Trump administration sued California for entering a climate agreement with Quebec, saying the state had veered out of its lane in linking with a market in another country and had no right to conduct foreign policy.

The decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California this week said the Trump administration had “failed to identify a clear and express foreign policy that directly conflicts with California’s cap-and-trade program.”

President Donald Trump, a Republican, has pursued a policy of maximizing fossil fuel output while slashing environmental regulations. He intends to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change.

California, the most populous U.S. state and one of the 10 largest economies in the world, has long positioned itself as a leader on taking action against climate change. It agreed with Quebec in 2013 to link markets that aim to cut emissions of gases blamed for warming the planet.

The Trump administration has suffered several major losses in the courts on environmental issues and energy pipelines. This week a federal judge in California blocked the administration’s plan to roll back a rule that would slash methane emissions from oil and gas operations on federal lands.

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ruling on California’s carbon emissions market.

Environmentalists cheered the decision. “The federal government should be doing everything in its power to fight climate change, not fighting the states that are leading the way,” said David Pettit, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council

— Reporting for Reuters by Timothy Gardner and Sebastien Malo.

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U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco said the jury’s $75 million punitive damages award to plaintiff Edwin Hardeman in March could not stand (all figures US$).

“It’s quite clear that under the Constitution I’m required to reduce the punitive damages award and it’s just a question of how much,” Chhabria said during a court hearing in which lawyers for both sides discussed the company’s request to overturn the verdict. Chhabria said he would issue a ruling by the end of next week.

Following a four-week trial, a federal jury on March 27 awarded $5 million in compensatory and $75 million in punitive damages to Hardeman, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2014.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings limit the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages to nine-to-one.

Chhabria said he was also considering reducing the compensatory damages award because Hardeman was now in full remission and unlikely to suffer as much as he had in the past.

Bayer, which bought Roundup maker Monsanto for $63 billion last year, says Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate are safe for human use and not carcinogenic.

The company faces lawsuits by more than 13,400 plaintiffs nationwide and a series of Roundup jury verdicts against Bayer have prompted its share price to plummet. Under pressure from activist shareholders, Bayer on Wednesday said it set up a committee to help resolve the litigation and hired an external lawyer to advise its supervisory board.

Bayer had asked Chhabria to completely reverse the jury verdict in Hardeman’s case in light of scientific evidence and assessments by regulators finding glyphosate to be safe.

Brian Stekloff, a lawyer for Bayer, on Tuesday said Monsanto went “above and beyond” to meet regulatory requirements, warranting a complete reversal of the punitive damages award.

But Chhabria disagreed, saying jurors had seen sufficient evidence that Monsanto did not care whether its products cause cancer, instead focusing on undermining people who were raising concerns.

“There was nothing suggesting that anybody at Monsanto viewed this issue objectively or with any consideration for the life of human people,” the judge said.

— Tina Bellon reports on U.S. business and liability law for Reuters from New York.

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U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro dismissed the case “with prejudice,” meaning that rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and a militia member will not face another trial. Navarro had declared a mistrial last month.

Navarro’s decision was a rebuke to prosecutors in the politically charged case, which arose from Bundy’s grazing of cattle on federal land without paying fees for two decades. His defiance galvanized right-wing militia groups challenging U.S. government authority over vast tracts of public land.

Bundy emerged from the courthouse to cheers from about 100 supporters and said he still did not recognize federal authority over the land where he grazed his herds.

“They stuck the guns down our throats and that’s definitely not what our Founding Fathers meant to happen in America,” the 71-year-old rancher said, his wife, Carol, at his side.

Navarro told a packed Las Vegas courtroom that prosecutors made “several misrepresentations to the defense and to the court” that amounted to misconduct and prevented a fair trial for Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan and militia member Ryan Payne.

She said more than 1,000 pages of Federal Bureau of Investigation memos were kept from the defense until well past an October deadline. The agency failed in its duty despite years of investigations and two years of trial preparation, she said.

Prosecutors appeared stunned after the judge’s decision, and Bundy family members wept in the spectators’ section.

The 2014 revolt at the heart of the trial was sparked by a court-ordered roundup of Bundy’s cattle by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, after the rancher had refused to pay federal grazing fees.

Hundreds of supporters, many of them armed, rallied at his ranch in a show of force to demand the return of his impounded livestock. Police and federal agents retreated rather than risk bloodshed and no shots were fired.

Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said prosecutors had bungled the case and let the Bundys succeed in breaking the law.

“The failure of this case will only embolden this violent and racist anti-government movement that wants to take over our public lands,” he said.

— John Smith is a freelance journalist reporting for Reuters from Las Vegas; writing by Ian Simpson.

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Chicago-based ADM, one of the world’s largest grain traders and processors, filed suit against CP in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois last Friday, seeking damages “resulting from one of the worst and most persistent railroad service failures experienced by ADM in many years.”

But that same day, Calgary-based CP filed a claim against ADM in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota seeking payment of overdue charges.

Railroads have long served as the lone, dependable way to move grain across the northern U.S. Plains, where there are no commercially-navigable rivers.

In early 2014, after months of worsening delays crippled the U.S. farm transportation system, farmers in the Upper Midwest held the largest grain stocks in years.

A CP spokesman said ADM’s claim stems from that harsh winter, adding it would “defend itself vigorously against ADM’s frivolous allegations.”

ADM refers in its lawsuit to damages of “several million dollars,” but it is potentially embarrassing as it highlights key benefits CP has touted in its bid for Norfolk Southern.

CP in mid-November disclosed its US$28 billion offer for Norfolk Southern.

The Norfolk, Virginia-based railroad has rebuffed CP’s advances. CP claims a deal would result in cost savings of more than US$1.8 billion annually.

While some rail customers back the bid, many, such as package delivery companies UPS and FedEx, oppose it. Opponents say cost-cutting initiatives would cause service disruptions.

Since septuagenarian railroad legend Hunter Harrison became CP CEO in 2012, Wall Street has cheered its efforts to trim costs.

But ADM’s lawsuit claims service disruptions at its facilities in Enderlin and Velva, N.D. and Red Wing, Minn. stem partly from CP “engaging in imprudent cost-cutting initiatives.”

ADM blamed the problems on “diversionary management activities” at CP “pertaining to potential rail merger/acquisition partners.”

In late 2014, CP also offered to buy No. 3 U.S. railroad CSX Corp., but was rebuffed.

The lawsuit also alleges CP did not allow ADM to use alternative rail providers “to mitigate its service deficiencies.”

CP has promoted the idea of “open access,” allowing rail customers to use alternatives in similar situations.

— Nick Carey and Tom Polansek report for Reuters from Chicago.

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