Washington (United States) (AFP) – The US Supreme Court sided with multinational giant Bayer on Thursday, overturning a lower court ruling that exposed the company to thousands of claims that the Monsanto weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. In a 7-2 decision, the US high court sent back to a Missouri state court a $1.25 million jury award against the Germany-based company, concluding that the US Environmental Protection Agency’s determination that Roundup is not a carcinogen preempts claims in state court tying the product to a cancer diagnosis. Shares of Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, soared 18.7 percent on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The ruling is expected to speed efforts by the industrial giant to move past the litigation following billions of dollars in settlements.
The Supreme Court case stems from a suit brought by John Durnell, who had won a failure-to-warn suit in a Missouri court in 2024. Durnell — who relied on Monsanto marketing that Roundup was safe to spray on clothing — blamed the product for his blood cancer diagnosis. He argued that the International Agency for Research on Cancer considers glyphosate, one of Roundup’s ingredients, a probable human carcinogen. But Bayer, whose case was backed by the administration of US President Donald Trump, argued before the conservative-dominated Supreme Court that it should be shielded from state lawsuits since the EPA approved the sale of Roundup to consumers and farmers without any warnings.
The US Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) “demands uniformity and expressly preempts state labeling requirements,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion, reversing the judgment of the Missouri Court of Appeals. The EPA review “critically evaluates the pesticide’s label to ensure that the label contains all warnings necessary to protect human health,” the majority said. “And after EPA decides the appropriate warnings for a pesticide’s label, a manufacturer is legally required to use that label unless and until EPA subsequently approves or requires a new label.”
But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissent joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, said the majority had misread the federal statute, arguing that the EPA’s approval of a pesticide’s label does not affect FIFRA’s prohibition on misbranding pesticides. The statute “does not treat as infallible the EPA’s judgement as to whether FIFRA’s midbranding provision has been violated,” she wrote. The court “misunderstands FIFRA’s requirement, misinterprets the scope of FIFRA’s preemption and ultimately leaves Durness without a remedy for the significant harms he has suffered.”
Barring future claims, Bayer, which maintains that Roundup is safe, said in a statement the Supreme Court ruling “should help significantly contain the Roundup litigation after nearly a decade of legal battles.” “The US Supreme Court decision is good for science, farmers, and industries that depend on regulatory clarity for innovation,” Bayer said. “The ruling should result in the dismissal of current warning-based claims and bar future failure-to-warn claims.” Bayer in February unveiled a $7.25 billion class action settlement to resolve blood cancer claims. The company had said previously that a favorable Supreme Court ruling would disincentivize potential opt-outs. On June 17, a federal judge in Missouri rejected efforts to shift the $7.25 billion accord to US court. A state court approved the settlement in March.
Brent Wisner, a managing partner at Wisner Baum who has argued numerous cases against Monsanto, described the ruling as a major setback. “The courtroom has historically been one of the few places where evidence and truth can outweigh corporate power. This decision is a severe blow to holding corporations accountable,” said Wisner, who estimated that more than 60,000 cases were pending in US courts. “This is not the outcome we wanted from the Supreme Court, but it means there is more work to be done,” Wisner concludes.
© 2024 AFP
