Supreme Court rejects Bayer’s bid to end lawsuits over Roundup
The Supreme Court rejected a multibillion-dollar appeal from Bayer, refusing to shield the company from potentially tens of thousands of claims that its top-selling Roundup weed killer causes cancer.
The justices left intact a $25 million award to Edwin Hardeman, who said decades of exposure to Roundup caused his non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Bayer argued that federal approval of Roundup’s label meant Mr. Hardeman’s suit — and others like it — couldn’t go forward.
Bayer said a Supreme Court ruling in its favor would “effectively and largely end” Roundup litigation in the U.S. The company set aside $4.5 billion in case the justices rejected the appeal.
A Supreme Court victory would have saved Bayer an estimated $3 billion from the $16 billion the company has set aside to resolve all the litigation, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
Bayer “respectfully disagrees with the Supreme Court’s decision,” the German conglomerate said. “The company is fully prepared to manage the litigation risk associated with potential future claims in the U.S.”
Bayer is seeking Supreme Court review of an $87 million award to a couple who got cancer after using the herbicide for over three decades. That appeal includes a line of argument that contends a $70 million punitive damage award in the case is constitutionally excessive.
The German drugs and chemicals giant inherited the legal mess when it acquired Monsanto, the herbicide’s maker, before the first U. S. jury found that Roundup had caused cancer. The company lost the first three Roundup cases to go to trial but has won the three verdicts since.
Mr. Hardeman says he used Roundup from the 1980s to 2012 and was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2015.
He sued under California law, claiming that Monsanto’s failure to warn of Roundup’s carcinogenic risk caused his illness. Jurors awarded him more than $80 million, later cut by the trial judge to $25 million.
At the Supreme Court, Bayer argued that Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act shields the company from liability. FIFRA says states may not impose packaging or labeling requirements that are “in addition to or different from” those under the federal law.
The Supreme Court interpreted that provision to allow failure-to-warn suits under state law, as long as the state requirements are “genuinely equivalent” to those under FIFRA.
In its appeal, Bayer contended the verdict held the company to a tougher standard than federal regulators have. Bayer said the Environmental Protection Agency told manufacturers of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, that no request to add a cancer warning would be approved because it would be false and misleading. Bayer has steadfastly maintained Roundup doesn’t cause cancer.
“A company can be severely punished for marketing a product without a cancer warning when the nearuniversal scientific and regulatory consensus is that the product does not cause cancer, and the responsible federal agency has forbidden such a warning,” Bayer argued.
Mr. Hardeman’s team said the EPA’S 2019 letter doesn’t address the “unique risks” posed when glyphosate is combined with other ingredients.
Bayer has said it will pull the current version of the weed killer off the U.S. consumer market in 2023.