Supreme Court hears Roundup case that could limit Americans’ ability to sue pesticide companies

The Supreme Court could limit Americans’ ability to sue pesticide makers over alleged health harms from their products in a case that saw oral arguments on Monday.

At issue is whether people can sue pesticide-makers such as Monsanto for failing to warn consumers of alleged health harms stemming from their products.

The company asked the court to consider the issue, appealing a Missouri verdict that awarded a man named John Durnell $1.25 million as a result of his failure-to-warn claim over Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer.

The impacts could be far-reaching and either enable or stifle lawsuits around the country.

The justices did not give a clear indication of which way they would rule, with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch and liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson among the justices who asked tough questions of Monsanto.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, however, appeared skeptical of Durnell.

Pesticide critics, including environmental activists and supporters of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, rallied outside the court on Monday, saying people should be able to hold companies accountable.

In court, Monsanto argued that some state-level failure-to-warn claims against pesticide companies should not be allowed to proceed because they are preempted by the nation’s main pesticide law.

The company’s argument is based on a provision in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act that says states cannot impose “requirements for labeling or packaging” on pesticides “in addition to or different from” those set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“There’s really no way to look at this case and not come to the conclusion that a Missouri jury has told us that a cancer warning that EPA hasn’t required us to put on the label is required to [be] put on that label, and that just seems like a requirement in addition to what’s required by the EPA,” said Monsanto lawyer Paul Clement.

Gorsuch asked Clement about cases where some companies have added cancer warnings to their labels even if they’re not required to by the EPA.

“If it all does boil down to the impossibility idea — that it’s hard to add these labels without EPA’s permission — what do we do about the fact that, at least as briefs before us suggest, registrants have added cancer warnings to their labels without EPA permission or objection?” Gorsuch asked.

In response, Clement said those cases were “essentially implementation mistakes.”

Durnell’s lawyer argued that under FIFRA, companies are also prohibited from selling pesticides whose labels are misleading or inadequate, and that the EPA does not have the authority to prevent the courts from holding companies liable under the law.

“I believe that the express preemption clause is requiring uniformity in law: the law of Missouri and the law of the United States have to be the same,” said Durnell’s lawyer Ashley Keller.

“It does not require fact finders to find the facts the same way,” Keller added. “One jury could say, ‘Monsanto didn’t do it, there’s nothing wrong with this pesticide’…and a different jury could come out the way Mr. Durnell’s jury did.”

Kavanaugh challenged him, asking, “The label subjects you to liability in one state and does not subject you to liability in the other state, is that uniformity?”

Keller said he believes it’s jury-by-jury rather than state-by-state.

The issue could separately come to a head this week in Congress, where the  House could pass its version of the farm bill .

Republican leaders have  pushed for language  to limit pesticide-related lawsuits in the agriculture legislation, while many Democrats and MAHA-aligned Republicans oppose that provision.

The issue is one that splits the Republican Party and could also alienate the White House from some of its base. The Trump administration has backed Monsanto and pesticide makers at the Supreme Court.

Updated at 3:42 p.m. EDT

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