WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear an appeal from global agrochemical manufacturer Bayer to block thousands of state lawsuits alleging it failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller could cause cancer.
The justices will consider whether the Environmental Protection Agency's approval of the Roundup weedkiller without a cancer warning should rule out the state court claims.
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The Trump administration has weighed in on Bayer's behalf, reversing the Biden administration's position and putting it at odds with some supporters of the Make America Healthy Again agenda who oppose giving the company the legal immunity it seeks.
Some studies associate Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, with cancer, although the EPA has said it is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.
Bayer disputes the cancer claims but has set aside $16 billion to settle cases. At the same time, it has tried to persuade states to pass laws barring the lawsuits. Georgia and North Dakota have done so.
The high court will take up a case from Missouri, in which a jury awarded $1.25 million to a man who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after spraying Roundup on a community garden in St. Louis.
The Supreme Court in 2022 declined to hear a similar claim from Bayer in a California case that awarded more than $86 million to a married couple.
But Germany-based Bayer, which acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, contends the Supreme Court should intervene now because lower courts have issued conflicting rulings. In 2024, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Bayer’s favor.
Bayer faces about 181,000 Roundup claims, mostly from residential users. It has stopped using glyphosate in Roundup sold in the U.S. residential lawn and garden market. But glyphosate remains in agricultural products. It’s designed to be used with genetically modified seeds, including corn, soybeans and cotton, that resist the weedkiller’s deadly effect. It allows farmers to produce more while conserving the soil by tilling it less.
Bayer has said it might have to consider pulling glyphosate from U.S. agricultural markets if the lawsuits persist.
"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,” Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said in a statement.
Environmental groups said Bayer wants to keep juries out of the lawsuits because it keeps losing in state courts.
"It’s a sad day in America when our highest court agrees to consider depriving thousands of Roundup users suffering from cancer of their day in court,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
It’s unclear if the case will be argued in the spring or at the start of the next court term, in October.
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