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The Supreme Court on Tuesday accepted a multimillion-dollar verdict against the maker of the popular herbicide Roundup for failing to warn of the risks of cancer.
The court’s decision not to intervene leaves thousands of similar lawsuits against Bayer. The Biden administration had urged the court to deny the company’s request, a deviation from the Trump administration’s position.
In a statement on Tuesday, the company said it disagreed with the court’s decision not to file its appeal and “is confident that the extensive body of science and the consistently favorable views of major regulators across the country provide a solid foundation on which you can successfully advocate for Roundup. ” in court when necessary ”.
The case was filed by Edwin Hardeman, who was diagnosed in 2015 with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He sued the company, alleging that his use of Roundup for more than two decades had caused him cancer. He said the company had not warned of the risks of cancer associated with the active ingredient glyphosate.
“It’s been a long, hard-fought journey to bring Mr. Hardeman to justice, and now thousands of other cancer victims can continue to hold Monsanto accountable for decades of corporate embezzlement,” said Hardeman’s attorneys Jennifer Moore. and Aimee Wagstaff in a statement. referring to the original producer of the herbicide, which was acquired by Bayer in 2018.
The Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to cause cancer in humans. California labeling laws are stricter. After an international research group classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015, the state required a warning label for glyphosate-based pesticides. The classification sparked a series of lawsuits against the country’s most widely used herbicide manufacturer.
An appeals court upheld a jury’s $ 25 million verdict and found Hardeman’s exposure to Roundup a “substantial factor” in his cancer and that the company had not warned of the risks. .
The court rejects the Trump-era EPA’s conclusion that the herbicide is safe
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said federal law does not violate the company’s duty to include a cancer warning on its label. The court said a pesticide can have an “incorrect mark” even if the EPA has approved its label and that a company can meet federal and state labeling requirements.
The company’s lawyers urged the Supreme Court to reverse and noted previous rulings aimed at ensuring “national uniformity of pesticide labeling”. California and potentially 49 more states should not be able to “marginalize” EPA statements that glyphosate is unlikely to cause cancer, they said.
The company noted that Hardeman stopped using Roundup in 2012, ahead of the California label requirement.
In 2020, Bayer agreed to pay more than $ 10 billion to resolve tens of thousands of possible U.S. claims. The company said the deal was not an admission of misconduct and noted in its statement Tuesday that it had won its last four Roundup-related cases.
In addition, the company said it is moving away from glyphosate-based residential lawn and garden products in the U.S. to alternative ingredients to “manage U.S. litigation risk and not security issues.”
Last week, a separate ruling from the 9th Circuit ordered the EPA to reconsider its finding in 2020 that glyphosate posed “no unreasonable risk to humans or the environment.”
In a unanimous opinion, Judge Michelle Friedland wrote that the Trump-era finding “was not supported by substantial evidence” and did not comply with the agency’s legal obligations to review the environmental impact. Opinion noted that the nationwide area on which glyphosate is used is approximately three times the size of California.