Trump Administration Urges Supreme Court to Overturn Ruling on Bayer’s Roundup

Lawyers for the Trump administration have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in a case that found the maker of weedkiller Roundup liable for not warning it can cause cancer.

A jury found in favor of John Durnell, a Missouri man who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after exposure to Roundup, which was developed by the Monsanto Company. The jury’s finding of liability was upheld by a state appeals court, and the Missouri Supreme Court declined to take up the matter.

Bayer, which purchased Monsanto in 2018, in April asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ruling, arguing that federal law governing the labeling of pesticides preempts any state requirements and that the court should take into account how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved labeling Roundup without a cancer warning.

The solicitor general of the United States on Dec. 1 sided with Bayer, writing in a brief to the high court that EPA officials determined that an ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, “is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans, and the agency has repeatedly approved Roundup labels that did not contain cancer warnings.”

Leaving the ruling in place means “a jury may second-guess the agency’s science-based judgments,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.

The court’s intervention is warranted to preserve the labeling authority in the federal statute, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, he said.

Bayer, which is based in Germany, welcomed the development.

“The support of the U.S. Government is an important step and good news for U.S. farmers, who need regulatory clarity,” Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said in a statement. “The stakes could not be higher as the misapplication of federal law jeopardizes the availability of innovative tools for farmers and investments in the broader U.S. economy.”

A lawyer representing Durnell did not return a request for comment. His legal representatives said in an earlier brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that nothing in the federal law prevented Monsanto from warning people that Roundup may cause cancer.

Juries in 2018 began finding that Roundup presents a danger to people or can cause cancer and that the product’s manufacturer is liable.

Since acquiring Monsanto, Bayer has paid billions to settle many Roundup lawsuits, but has been hit with fresh cases in recent years.

Bayer has won some of the suits it did not settle. In others, it has been found liable and ordered to pay damages, including by jurors in Georgia who awarded a plaintiff $2.65 billion in March.