Today the U.S. Supreme Court will consider Bayer’s effort to shut down thousands of lawsuits accusing the company of failing to warn users that the active ingredient in its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer.
Why it matters: The case could determine whether federal pesticide law shields Bayer from tens of thousands of state-law failure-to-warn lawsuits over Roundup, potentially ending or reshaping one of the largest mass torts in U.S. history. Here’s a look at what the SCOTUS case could mean for those lawsuits.
Context: At issue is a Missouri jury verdict awarding $1.25 million to John Durnell, who said long-term exposure to Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Bayer argues that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act preempts state-law claims because the EPA has approved Roundup’s label without a cancer warning, while Durnell counters that state law mirrors federal misbranding requirements and allows such claims to proceed. The dispute comes amid more than 100,000 similar lawsuits and follows Bayer’s multibillion-dollar efforts to settle much of the litigation after acquiring Monsanto in 2018. Read more here.
Who: Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy for the petitioner; Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris for the U.S. as amicus curiae supporting the petitioner; Ashley Keller of Keller Postman for the respondent.
