The court must decide whether the EPA’s position that glyphosate needs no cancer warning shields companies from state lawsuits.
Like countless homeowners, John Durnell of Missouri used a popular herbicide to keep his home and community free from unwanted weeds.
He used the chemical from the 1990s until 2018, when he developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a diagnosis he blames on an ingredient known as glyphosate in his Roundup weedkiller.
Thousands of others across the country, including Durnell, have sued Roundup’s manufacturer, Monsanto, claiming the company failed to warn consumers that exposure to its glyphosate-based herbicides could cause them to develop cancer.
Durnell secured a $1.25 million verdict in Missouri state court, but Monsanto appealed. Now his claim is being tested again in the highest court in the nation.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Monsanto Co. v. Durnell on April 27.
The question before the high court isn’t about Roundup or glyphosate’s safety; rather, it concerns preemption, or whether federal law supersedes state law when the two are in conflict.
Monsanto, which Bayer acquired in 2018, told the justices that the verdict was based on a faulty application of state law and conflicted with federal regulation.
The Supreme Court is focused on that question, and its ruling could impact thousands and the agricultural industry.
“If the Supreme Court rules for Bayer, it’s hard not to see it as a judicial shield for corporate America. Compliance with federal labeling would function less like a floor for safety and more like a litigation force field,” personal injury attorney Angel Reyes told The Epoch Times.
Glyphosate
Monsanto’s primary argument against Durnell relied on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) decision to register glyphosate in 1974, allowing its use in the United States. It’s a consistent theme brought up in similar lawsuits against the company.
The agency has historically maintained that Roundup and glyphosate have sufficient warning labels and do not cause cancer.
Since glyphosate’s approval, it has become among the most widely used chemicals in agricultural production. Its use skyrocketed in the 1990s, when Monsanto introduced genetically modified “Roundup Ready” crops, allowing farmers to kill weeds without killing the crop itself.
The EPA registered glyphosate as a pesticide pursuant to its authority under a law known as the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. Monsanto argued that when Congress passed that law in 1947, it gave the federal government, not states, certain power to regulate products like Roundup.
This argument is based on a legal doctrine known as preemption, which says that federal law takes precedence over state law. It’s ultimately rooted in the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which says federal laws reign “supreme.”
Some of the arguments on April 27 could focus on the 1947 law’s phrasing, which allows states to regulate pesticides but contains a caveat. States “shall not impose or continue in effect any requirements for labeling or packaging in addition to or different from those required under” the law, it says.
Durnell’s verdict was based on a “failure-to-warn” claim, or the idea that Monsanto violated a Missouri law that required companies to warn about product dangers.
Because the federal government already approved glyphosate without those additional warnings, Monsanto argued that Missouri’s law couldn’t go further in regulating how it warned consumers.
“The verdict in Durnell’s favor … necessarily required the jury to find that state law required Monsanto to include in Roundup’s label a warning that EPA has deemed unsupported and unnecessary,” lawyers for Monsanto told the court.
If the Supreme Court were to rule in Monsanto’s favor, it could limit plaintiffs’ ability to hold Monsanto or other manufacturers liable.
By Troy Myers and Jacob Burg
