Roundup Cancer Lawsuit Trial Underway in Missouri Court

Case will test whether tens of thousands of Roundup cancer claims can still move forward despite the recent Supreme Court decision.

The first Roundup cancer trial since a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling began in Missouri on September 29, where three women are pursuing claims that years of exposure to the weed killer caused them to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The trial is being closely watched because the Supreme Court recently blocked one of the main legal claims that has been used in Roundup lawsuits for years.

Since 2015, Bayer and its Monsanto subsidiary have faced more than 120,000 Roundup cancer lawsuits alleging that Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, increase the risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. About 65,000 claims remain unresolved.

Most of the lawsuits have accused Monsanto of failing to warn consumers about the potential cancer risks associated with Roundup. However, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on June 25 that those state-law failure-to-warn claims are blocked because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved Roundup labels without requiring a cancer warning.

That ruling significantly narrowed the claims Roundup plaintiffs may be able to pursue, but it did not address every allegation raised in the lawsuits.

Missouri Roundup Trial Tests Remaining Claims

The case, Theresa Aretino et al. v. Monsanto Company, does not rely only on allegations that Monsanto failed to warn users about a potential cancer risk.

The three women also argue that Roundup was defectively designed and that Monsanto failed to adequately test the weed killer before selling it to the public.

Those distinctions are important because the Supreme Court ruling focused specifically on failure-to-warn claims. The justices found that states generally cannot require Monsanto to provide a cancer warning that was not required by the EPA.

However, the court did not decide whether claims involving the design of Roundup itself, or allegations that Monsanto failed to adequately test the product, are also blocked.

That makes the Missouri trial an important early test of how much of the Roundup litigation may still be able to move forward following the Supreme Court decision.

Although several Roundup trials have already been held in state and federal courts, this is the first to go before a jury since the ruling. The case is therefore being viewed as an unofficial bellwether that may provide an early indication of how juries and courts will handle the remaining claims.

The outcome could also help determine whether other Roundup plaintiffs can continue pursuing defective design, inadequate testing and other claims that were not directly addressed by the Supreme Court.

Roundup Cancer Trials

Roundup lawsuits have produced several major jury verdicts since the first case went to trial in California state court in August 2018.

That trial ended with a $289 million verdict for a former school groundskeeper who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after years of Roundup exposure. The award was later reduced to $78 million.

In 2019, the first federal Roundup bellwether trial resulted in an $80 million verdict. Later that year, a California jury awarded more than $2 billion to a married couple who both developed cancer after years of using Roundup, although that award was later reduced to $87 million.

As those verdicts mounted, Bayer increasingly turned to courts, lawmakers and state legislatures in an effort to limit future Roundup liability.

The company had mixed success. Some states considered or adopted protections for pesticide manufacturers, but Bayer repeatedly failed to convince the Supreme Court to intervene in earlier Roundup cases. The justices declined to hear one appeal in 2019 and rejected another Roundup appeal in June 2022.

Bayer continued pressing the issue through the courts and through an extensive lobbying campaign. When the Supreme Court agreed to take up the issue again, the federal government and more than a dozen state attorneys general filed briefs supporting the company’s position.

That effort ultimately produced the June ruling that now hangs over the remaining Roundup litigation and has made the Missouri trial an important test of which claims may still survive.

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