Will Justices Side With Pesticide Giant or Cancer Victim? SCOTUS Weighs Landmark Liability Case

by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.,Childrens Health Defense:

The U.S. Supreme Court today heard arguments in a case that will determine if pesticide companies can be held liable for health harms caused by their products if the EPA doesn’t require those health warnings on product labels. A man who alleges that Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer brought the case against Bayer. A lower court awarded the man $1.25 million. Bayer is seeking to have the ruling overturned.

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In widely anticipated oral arguments today, the U.S. Supreme Court gave no clear signal as to whether it will side with Bayer, which is seeking to avoidlawsuits related to its Roundup weedkiller, or a lower court, which ordered Bayer to pay $1.25 million to a man who alleges Roundup caused his cancer.

At issue is whetherpesticidecompanies are immune from lawsuits for failing to warn consumers about health harms if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn’t require the companies to include those warnings on their product labels.

Today’s arguments stemmed from alawsuitfiled in 2019 against Monsanto byJohn Durnell, who said he developednon-Hodgkin lymphomaafter using Roundup for years. Studies havelinked glyphosate, the key active ingredient in Roundup, to non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Durnell sued Monsanto, which originally developed and marketed Roundup, for failing to warn users about the product’scancerrisk.

Bayer, which acquired Roundup when it bought the agrochemical giant Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018, has already paid more than $10 billion to resolve lawsuits filed against Monsanto before the acquisition. The company still faces more than 60,000 lawsuits in the U.S.