US supreme court rules in favor of former Monsanto company in pesticide case

‘The People vs the Poison’ protesters gather at the US supreme court on 27 April 2026 in Washington DC. Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images View image in fullscreen ‘The People vs the Poison’ protesters gather at the US supreme court on 27 April 2026 in Washington DC. Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images US supreme court rules in favor of former Monsanto company in pesticide case Justices rule that federal law blocks state cases over label warnings on Roundup by people alleging it caused illness The US supreme court has ruled in favor of the former Monsanto company in a closely watched case that limits the way for people to sue pesticide companies for alleged illnesses or injuries. The decision was made in a 7-2 vote, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh offering the majority opinion and Justice Jackson writing the dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch. The case, Monsanto v Durnell , specifically dealt with the question of whether a federal law that gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory authority over pesticides preempts state claims that a company failed to warn users of certain product risks when the EPA itself has not required such warnings. In its ruling, the court said the EPA controls pesticide labels to ensure nationwide uniformity, and because the agency evaluated Roundup and decided a cancer warning was unnecessary, state-level lawsuits demanding such a warning conflict with federal law The case at the heart of the decision deals with Monsanto’s glyphosate – a weedkilling chemical used in the popular Roundup brand and numerous other herbicide products sold by the former Monsanto company, which is now owned by Germany’s Bayer. The chemical has been scientifically linked to cancer in multiple studies, and was classified a probable human carcinogen by an arm of the World Health Organization in 2015. Bayer has spent the last decade fighting more than 100,000 lawsuits filed by people who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma they blamed on exposure to the glyphosate weedkillers, and the company has paid out billions of dollars in jury awards and settlements. All of the cases include allegations that the company failed to warn that glyphosate could cause cancer. Bayer maintains that its products don’t cause cancer, and also asserts that under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (Fifra), the EPA is the key authority for determining if its product necessitated a cancer warning. The EPA has not required such a warning and has taken the position that glyphosate is “ unlikely ” to be carcinogenic, so the company cannot be held liable for failing to warn, according to Bayer’s argument. The court’s decision means the failure-to-warn claims included in several thousand lawsuits pending against Monsantocannot go forward. Similarly, thousands of such claims pending against pesticide maker Syngenta cannot proceed. In the Syngenta cases, plaintiffs allege they developed Parkinson’s disease due to exposure to