Supreme Court Divided Over Roundup Cancer Lawsuit Case

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared split Monday during arguments over whether to block thousands of lawsuits claiming that Monsanto failed to warn users that its popular weedkiller Roundup could cause cancer.

The case arrives at the nation’s highest court following years of litigation that has resulted in several multibillion-dollar verdicts against Bayer, the German pharmaceutical and chemical conglomerate that acquired Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion.

During oral arguments, several justices seemed receptive to Bayer’s position that it cannot be sued under state law because federal regulators have determined Roundup likely doesn’t cause cancer. Other justices questioned whether this approach would improperly prevent states from responding to evolving scientific research.

The case before the court was brought by Missouri resident John Durnell, who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after more than two decades as his neighborhood association’s designated “spray guy,” applying Roundup to parks in his historic St. Louis community. A jury found that the company failed to adequately warn him about potential cancer risks and awarded him $1.25 million in damages.

Durnell’s lawsuit is just one of thousands facing Bayer, with the litigation posing significant financial and operational challenges for the company. Bayer has already set aside $16 billion to settle Roundup-related cases and earlier this year proposed a major settlement to resolve ongoing litigation.

At the center of the legal dispute is glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient. The scientific community remains divided over its carcinogenicity. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” in 2015, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has maintained that the chemical is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans” when used according to label instructions.

Bayer’s legal argument hinges on this regulatory approval. The company contends that federal law requiring it to follow EPA standards preempts the state laws under which Durnell and others have sued. The EPA’s labeling determinations are reviewed every 15 years, which Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted could be a significant gap given the pace of scientific advancement.

Chief Justice John Roberts raised concerns about states being powerless during this review period: “Throughout that long process, in response to information that suggests there is a risk that’s not on the label, the states cannot do anything?”

Durnell’s legal team argues that federal law doesn’t prevent Bayer from adding cancer warnings to its products under state law. However, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Elena Kagan expressed concern that subjecting companies to various state regulations could undermine the uniformity sought by federal oversight. “Do you think it’s uniformity when each state can require different things?” Kavanaugh asked.

The high-stakes case has attracted significant attention from agricultural interests. The American Farm Bureau Federation warned in court documents that removing glyphosate from the market would pose an “immediate, devastating risk to America’s food supply” at a time when the industry already faces numerous pressures.

Environmental groups counter that Bayer is attempting to keep juries out of the litigation process precisely because of its losses in state courts.

The case has also exposed political divisions. While the Biden administration supports Bayer’s position, this stance has created friction with some members of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, who advocate for stricter controls on pesticide use.

Kennedy himself has repeatedly stated that glyphosate causes cancer, though he acknowledges the necessity of a recent executive order boosting glyphosate production for food security and national security reasons.

The ongoing litigation has already prompted Bayer to stop using glyphosate in Roundup products sold in the U.S. residential lawn and garden market. The company has indicated it might consider withdrawing the chemical from U.S. agricultural markets entirely if lawsuits continue.

The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its decision by the end of June, a ruling that could have far-reaching implications for product liability law, chemical regulation, and the future of one of the world’s most widely used herbicides.