The Supreme Court said in a 7-2 decision Thursday. bayer The company cannot sue over state-level claims that it failed to warn about cancer risks from the herbicide Roundup and the chemical glyphosate.
The decision is a major victory for Bayer and the Trump administration, which argued that failure to warn claims are preempted by federal laws governing pesticides. It’s also a major blow to the Make America Healthy Again movement, which helped return Trump to the White House in the 2024 election but feels betrayed by the administration’s embrace of glyphosate. Glyphosate is most commonly used in agriculture and has long been linked to the development of cancer.
Monsanto’s Roundup is sold in Encinitas, California.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, argued that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts state-level failure to warn because the Environmental Protection Agency considers glyphosate to be safe when used properly and does not require a carcinogen warning label.
“With respect to pesticide labels, FIFRA requires ‘uniformity’ and explicitly preempts state labeling requirements that are ‘in addition to’ or ‘distinct from’ federal labeling requirements,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And as a matter of law, state tort law cannot impose labeling requirements “in addition to” or “different from” federal requirements imposed under FIFRA.”
Bayer welcomed the decision on Thursday, saying it was “good for science, farmers and industry, which depends on regulatory clarity for innovation.”
“After nearly a decade of legal battles, this decision should help significantly curtail Roundup litigation,” the company, which acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, said in a statement. “This ruling should dismiss current warning-based claims and bar future warning-based claims.”
Following the ruling, the company’s stock rose 15.75% to $13.09.
The lawsuit centers on the failure to warn claims of one man, John Darnell, who claimed his cancer was caused by repeated exposure to glyphosate. In 2019, Darnell was awarded more than $1 million by a Missouri jury after a court found Bayer failed to warn him of cancer risks. The Missouri Court of Appeals upheld the decision, but the Supreme Court reversed and remanded Thursday.
But the court’s decision is likely to affect more than just Mr. Darnell’s case, as a series of lawsuits have been filed against Bayer for failing to warn about the alleged cancer risks of Roundup, which is currently in legal jeopardy.
MAHA leader Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Secretary of Health and Human Services, won a similar lawsuit in 2018 against a man who claimed Monsanto failed to warn him of the cancer risks posed by glyphosate.
The court’s decision could have political implications for the Trump administration for MAHA activists who supported President Donald Trump and supported the current president after Kennedy withdrew his candidacy for president alone.
“Today’s SCOTUS ruling is historic. No administration in history has so blatantly and aggressively sold off our fertility, vitality, and health to corporate profits,” MAHA advocate Kelly Ryerson wrote about X. Her online nickname is “Glyphosate Girl.”
“This is inexcusable. We will let all voters know exactly how this domestic chemical attack happened,” Ryerson wrote.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to Kennedy’s request for comment.
In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer found that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The U.S. EPA has never required such a label.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the court’s decision, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
“In these precedents, this court departs from the near-unanimous view of many state and federal courts that have rejected this preemption claim. In my view, the majority should have joined that chorus,” she wrote.
“Mr. Darnell’s failure to warn claim is not ‘in addition to’ FIFRA’s obligations; it is not ‘in addition’ to FIFRA’s obligations; it amounts to FIFRA’s principal labeling requirement, the prohibition against misrepresentation,” she wrote.
—CNBC’s Luke Fountain contributed to this report.
