Bayer shares soar after US Supreme Court overturns Roundup cancer verdict

The news: The US Supreme Court sided with Bayer on Thursday morning Washington time, overturning a USD1.25 million ($1.8 million) jury award to a Missouri man who said Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer, in a 7-2 decision that could curtail thousands of similar lawsuits.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, found that federal law overrides the claim the man, John Durnell, had brought under state law: that Bayer failed to warn users Roundup could cause cancer. Kavanaugh wrote that allowing the claim would require a cancer warning on Roundup’s label, conflicting with the label approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, which has determined glyphosate does not cause cancer and has not required a warning.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch dissented. Jackson argued that Durnell’s claim mirrored federal law rather than adding to it, because the statute already bars selling a pesticide whose label lacks a necessary warning, and EPA approval of the label is not conclusive proof the product complies. She wrote the ruling leaves Durnell “without a remedy for the significant harms he has suffered”.

Durnell was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after years of exposure to glyphosate.

The Trump administration backed Bayer in the case, reversing the position taken under former US President Joe Biden. The move angered supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement, who had campaigned to get glyphosate out of the food system and saw the administration’s stance as a betrayal.