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Herbicide fight hits Supreme court

Key issue is whether Monsanto can be sued

By: Maureen Groppe
USA Today

WASHINGTON - John Durnell was the "spray guy."
..... For more than two decades, he sued the popular weed killer roundup to spruce up parks, playgrounds and sidewalks near his home in a historic St. Louis neighborhood.
..... But after developing blood cancer, Durnell became one of the tens of thousands of Americans suing the maker of roundup.
..... In 2023, a jury agreed with Durnell that the weed killer was a cause of his non-Hodgkin lymphoma and said Monsanto owed him $1.25 million.
..... Now Durnell is at the center of a Supreme Court case to be argued on April 27 [2026] tackles whether Monsanto can be sued for failing to warn of cancer risks from glyphosate. The chemical was the active ingredient in Roundup though Monsanto has subsequently stopped using glyphostate in Roundup products sold for residential use.
..... The company faces billions of dollars in potentiality liability and has said it may have to stop selling glyphosate to U.S. farmers if the lawsuits continue, a scenario major agricultural group say would pose a "devastating risk to American's food supply."
..... Public health groups say the lawsuits are needed because the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to protect Americans from risks associated with glyphosate. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who sued Monsanto over Roundup when he was a practicing lawyer, confounded one of the groups that filed a brief supporting Durnell.
..... Yet in a move that has alarmed Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again movement, the Trump administration is backing the company. President Donald Trump has also pushed to spur domestic production of glyphosate and to protect manufacturers from liability, saying there's no comparable alternative.
..... The fight is playing out as a proposed $7.25 billion class-action settlement with the company could resolve many of the lawsuits.
..... The uncertainty over how the Supreme Court will rule could be an extra inducement for people suing Monsanto to accept the pending deal, which is not dependent on the outcome of the case.
..... "I don't trust the Supreme Court in this situation," said Howard Kornblue, another former Roundup user with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. "The possibility of coming away with zero [compensation] is not good."
..... Bayer, the German pharmaceutical and biotech giant that acquired Monsanto in 2018, hopes that both the Supreme Court and the pending settlement will limit the extent of future lawsuits. The company is also pushing for legislation to shield it from liability.

Top-selling herbicide

..... Introduced in the 1970s, Roundup quickly became the top-selling herbicide in the United States and integral to farming.
..... The American Farm Bureau Federation and other major agriculture groups told the Supreme Court in a filing that glyphosate a highly effective broad-spectrum, and low-cost weed control solution."
..... The EPA, which regulates pesticides, has never required a cancer warning label for glyphosate.
..... But in 2015, a world Health Organization agency said glyphosate was "probably carcinogenic to humans," prompting lawsuits. In December 2025, a widely cited 2000 scientific review, purporting to show that chemical;s safety, was retracted over the authors' conflicts of interest with Monsanto.
..... Monsanto maintains that glyphosae is safe for people to use. The company attributes the flood of lawsuits to the popularity of Roundup, to non-Hodgkin lymphoma being a "very common and naturally occurring cancer," and to heave advertising by trial lawyer trying to drum up business.
..... The company's lawyers told the Supreme Court that the EPA "considered and rejected" the idea of maintained the kind of warning that the jury in Durnell's case recommended.
..... "EPA has concluded again and again that glyphosate doesn't cause cancer," they said in a filing. "A warning stating otherwise is neither required or permitted under federal law."

User argues for warning

..... Durnell's cancer is in remission, but his lawyers say multiple rounds of chemotherapy have left a lasting mark, including continuing issues with his legs.
..... He can no loner help improve his neighborhood because, he told the jury that heard his lawsuit, "I'm not that physical any longer."
..... His lawyers argue that nothing in federal law of the EPA's regulations prohibits Monsanto from adding a cancer warning to its labels.
....."Walmart gives a better warning to people when they have a spill of milk in the store than Monsanto's ever given to a Roundup lawn and garden buyer," Roe Frazer, one of Durell's lawyers, told the jury.
..... Instead, Monsanto has marketed Roundup as safe to spray in a t-shirt and shorts,: his lawy3ers told the Supreme court in written arguments.
..... A group of former EPA officials field a brief supporting Durnell, telling the Supreme Court that EPA-approved labels don't always include all the appropriate warnings. The manufacturer, the officials said, is responsible for keeping both the EPA and the labels up to date with necessary safety information.
..... Plaintiff's have lost about half the roundup suits that have gone to trail, according to Christopher Seeger, an attorney who helped negotiate the pending $7.25 million class-action settlement.
..... Most of the clients represented by the Seeger Weiss law firm are backing the deal, a decision they will like have to make before knowing how the Supreme Court will rule.
..... "It makes it a little riskier to stay out," Seeger said.
..... Kornblue, a Seeger Weiss client who supports the settlement, said his 2019 diagnosis was "devastating news, because there's no history of blood cancer in my family."
..... The 84-year-old retiree said he sued Roundup for decades to fight wees around his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, assuming he could trust products eh found on the shelf at Costco.
..... If his health deteriorates, Kornblue hopes any compensation he might get from Bayer will cover some of his medical bills. He also sees the settlement as a more likely route than the Supreme Court to hold accountable the company he blames for his cancer.

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