The U.S. Supreme Court announced today it will review a case that could impact litigation that involves Roundup. This comes after Monsanto, a subsidiary of Bayer, petitioned the court and received a brief in support of the appeal from the U.S. solicitor general’s office.
“The Supreme Court decision to take the case is good news for U.S. farmers, who need regulatory clarity,” said Bayer CEO Bill Anderson. “It’s also an important step in our multi-pronged strategy to significantly contain this litigation. It is time for the U.S. legal system to establish that companies should not be punished under state laws for complying with federal warning label requirements.”
The specific case to be reviewed (Durnell) originated in Missouri in October 2023, when the Missouri Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis and the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, saying the company failed to warn of the product’s risk, and awarded them $1.25 million.
There has been a split among federal circuit courts in Roundup personal injury litigation, which brought it to the Supreme Court. The company says this raises the cross-cutting question of whether federal law preempts state claims based on failure-to-warn theories.
To date, Bayer has paid more than $10 billion to plaintiffs in litigation claiming Roundup as the cause of their cancer. The company has budgeted more than $17 billion toward the glyphosate litigation.
Anderson became Bayer CEO in 2023, and one of his commitments was to get the glyphosate litigation “under control” by the end of 2026. In total, there have been about 180,000 lawsuits brought forward, with about 60,000 cases open now.
Previously, Bayer announced a multi-prong strategy to achieve Anderson’s goal, including court case management, state law advocacy and a call to the Supreme Court to review the FIFRA’s preemption provision.
The company has said it could withdraw from the market if they aren’t successful with the goal of containing the litigation next year. Currently, Bayer is the only domestic producer of glyphosate in the U.S.
