Bayer wins protection from Roundup cancer claims

The Supreme Court weeded Bayer’s garden yesterday with a 7–2 ruling that the company can’t be sued in state courts over claims that it failed to warn customers that its herbicide Roundup causes cancer.

This is a major victory for Bayer, which has been mired in litigation since it bought Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018. The decision overturns a Missouri jury’s $1.25 million award to a gardener who claimed he got cancer from repeated Roundup exposure and shields Bayer from tens of thousands of similar lawsuits. It also likely clears the way for a proposed $7.25 billion class-action settlement that would largely put Bayer’s Roundup crisis to bed.

Here’s why the court did what it did:

• Though the World Health Organization considers Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, “probably carcinogenic,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deems this “unlikely” and doesn’t require cancer warnings on Roundup.
• Because federal law bars states from imposing pesticide label requirements that differ from the EPA’s, Bayer is protected against state-level failure-to-warn claims, the court’s majority opinion, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, said. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

Trouble in MAHA-dise: The decision is a win for the pesticide industry—and for the Trump administration, which urged the court to side with Bayer. But RFK Jr.’s followers are staunchly opposed to glyphosate and aren’t happy with the Trump-supported decision.—ML