By Diana Novak Jones
April 27 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday in Bayer’s bid to limit thousands of lawsuits alleging that the German company’s Roundup weedkiller causes cancer in a case that is one part of sprawling years-long litigation over the product.
Here is a look at how the court’s decision, which is expected by the end of June, could affect Bayer’s overall liability.
WHAT IS THE SUPREME COURT CASE ABOUT?
The justices heard Bayer’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling in a case brought by a man who said he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, after years of exposure to Roundup. The Missouri Court of Appeals upheld a $1.25 million verdict that a St. Louis jury awarded the plaintiff, John Durnell, over his cancer diagnosis.
The company is facing tens of thousands of similar lawsuits over Roundup in both federal and state courts across the country.
The Supreme Court appeared divided at Monday’s arguments. At issue was whether a federal law dictating warning labels on pesticides takes precedence over similar state laws. Bayer argued that plaintiffs cannot claim it violated state laws by failing to warn about any cancer risk posed by Roundup because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found no such risk and requires no such warning on the product’s label. President Donald Trump’s administration sided with Bayer in the case.
A decision in favor of Bayer would strike a major blow to the multitude of other lawsuits because plaintiffs would no longer be able to claim the company failed to follow state laws when it did not include a warning about cancer risk on its label.
WHAT IS THE STATUS OF THE ROUNDUP LAWSUITS?
Bayer is facing claims over Roundup from approximately 65,000 plaintiffs in U.S. state and federal courts. In lawsuits filed beginning in 2015, plaintiffs have said they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other forms of cancer after using the weedkiller at home or on the job. Roundup is among the most widely used weedkillers in the United States. Bayer has said decades of studies have shown Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, are safe for human use.
WHAT SETTLEMENT DID BAYER REACH?
In February, Bayer announced it had reached a $7.25 billion settlement with attorneys seeking to represent a nationwide class of people who have said Roundup exposure caused their cancer. The deal is aimed at resolving most of the remaining lawsuits as well as potential future lawsuits from people who already have been exposed to Roundup and develop cancer in the future. A state court judge in Missouri gave an initial green light in March to the proposed settlement. Final approval has not yet been granted, with a hearing scheduled for July.
COULD THE SUPREME COURT RULING END ALL THE LITIGATION?
If the Supreme Court sides with Bayer, such a ruling would not automatically mean that all remaining lawsuits would be dismissed.
Most of the lawsuits include claims that the company failed to warn consumers about cancer on Roundup’s label, the issue before the justices. But most of them include other claims that could continue. Plaintiffs have accused Bayer of being negligent and misrepresenting Roundup’s safety in its marketing, and have alleged that the product was defective for its intended purpose.
Bayer, however, could try to argue in those cases that a Supreme Court ruling in its favor should doom the remaining claims. A win for the company at the Supreme Court also could help Bayer win appeals in a handful of cases that it has lost at trial.
DOES THE SUPREME COURT CASE MATTER FOR THE SETTLEMENT?
No matter how the court rules, it would not change the terms of the settlement, so people who decide to settle would not be impacted. But if Bayer wins, the people who opt out of the settlement and continue their cases would be limited in the claims they could bring. The settlement also does not apply to a small number of cases that are in federal court rather than state court, so those cases would also be impacted if the court sides with Bayer.
Plaintiffs who sued Bayer over Roundup have until June 4 to decide whether to opt out of the settlement and pursue their cases in court. But that deadline may come and go before the Supreme Court issues its ruling. Any plaintiffs concerned about how the Supreme Court’s ruling could impact their case may have to choose whether to settle without knowing the final decision by the justices.
(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones in Chicago; Editing by Amy Stevens and Will Dunham)
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