Supreme Court blocks thousands of Bayer lawsuits over weedkiller 'cancer risk' – USA Today

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on June 25 blocked thousands of lawsuits over the weed killer Roundup, ruling the manufacturer can’t be sued for failing to warn people that the popular product might cause cancer.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates pesticides, has not determined that Roundup poses a cancer risk and does not require a label saying it does.
In a 7-2 decision, the justices said that means Roundup users who have developed cancer cannot sue by claiming the weed killer violates state laws about dangerous products.
Their decision rejects a role for state laws if federal protections fall short.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the 7-2 majority that John Durnell, who won $1.25 million in his lawsuit, couldn’t bring a “failure-to-warn” lawsuit against Monsanto under Missouri law.
“In sum, federal law requires Monsanto to sell Roundup with the label that EPA approved at the initial registration and that EPA has subsequently re-approved on multiple occasions – that is, the label without a cancer warning,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Durnell’s state tort claim, by contrast, would require Monsanto to add a cancer warning to its labels.”
But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson disagreed, arguing the decision “departs from the near unanimous view of the many state and federal courts” about whether federal law trumps state law in this case.
“In my view, the majority should have joined that chorus,” Jackson wrote for herself and Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Bayer, the global agrochemical manufacturer that bought Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, is facing billions of dollars in potential liability from a deluge of lawsuits over glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.
The company said the ruling will help significantly limit litigation.
“The decision brings overdue justice on an issue that should have been clarified much earlier,” Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said in a statement. “It’s time to put it behind us.”
Though Bayer has stopped using glyphosate in Roundup products sold for residential use, the company has said it might have to stop selling glyphosate to U.S. farmers if the lawsuits continue. Major agricultural groups warned that would pose a “devastating risk to America’s food supply.”
The Trump administration backed Bayer, a position that alarmed some in the Make America Healthy Again movement who want to reduce pesticide use.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of foreign chemical companies, which essentially allows them immunity from lawsuits, is a travesty against the American Constitution and federal and state laws,” Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America, said in a statement.
Public health and environmental groups said the impact of the decision will reach far beyond Roundup, blocking similar lawsuits about other pesticides.
“This case was never just about Bayer,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group. “It was about whether states retain the authority to provide stronger protections for their residents when federal regulations fall short, and whether ordinary Americans can hold powerful corporations accountable when their pesticides cause harm.”
Introduced in the 1970s, Roundup quickly became the top-selling herbicide in the United States and integral to farming.
Lawsuits against Monsanto began after a World Health Organization agency in 2015 said glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic to humans,” a finding the company disputes.
Durnell, who used Roundup for more than two decades as the “spray guy” for his neighborhood association in a historic St. Louis neighborhood, believes glyphosate caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In 2023, a jury agreed and said Monsanto owed him $1.25 million – just one of the many lawsuits the company is fighting.
The company’s lawyers told the Supreme Court the EPA “considered and rejected” the idea of requiring the kind of warning recommended by the jury in Durnell’s case.
“Congress plainly wanted uniformity when it came to the safety warnings on a pesticide’s label,” Paul Clement, an attorney for Bayer, said when the case was argued in April. “Ignoring Congress’ clear direction here would open the door for crippling liability and undermine the interest of farmers who depend on federally registered pesticides for their livelihood.”
Durnell’s lawyers argued that nothing in federal law or the EPA’s regulations prohibits Monsanto from adding a cancer warning to its labels.
“Regardless of what the EPA says, they are not a safe harbor,” Ashley Keller, one of his lawyers, told the justices. “Though I think there are a lot of conscientious people working at that agency, I think we should also all agree that things slip through the cracks with that agency.”
The government is required to conduct its own safety review every 15 years. But the latest update is years overdue because a federal court in 2022 said the EPA didn’t adequately consider whether glyphosate causes cancer when it reached an interim decision during the first Trump administration.
The Supreme Court case played out as the company was negotiating a proposed class action settlement to resolve many of the lawsuits.
Bayer hoped that both the Supreme Court and the pending settlement would limit the extent of future lawsuits. The company also is pushing for legislation to shield it from liability.
Ricky A. LeBlanc, an attorney at Sokolove Law who has filed successful Roundup suits across the country, said the court “has essentially handed Bayer a shield and told victims they have no recourse, simply because a federal agency approved a label.”
“But the EPA never said Roundup was safe,” LeBlanc said. “They said it was ‘not likely’ carcinogenic. That is not the same thing, and real people are allegedly paying the price for that distinction with their health and their lives.”

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