Weedkiller maker asks US Supreme Court to block lawsuits claiming it failed to warn about cancer

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Global agrochemical manufacturer Bayer has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether federal law preempts thousands of state lawsuits alleging it failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller could cause cancer.

Bayer's new request to the nation's highest court comes as it is simultaneously pursing legislation in several states seeking to erect a legal shield against lawsuits targeting Roundup, a commonly used weedkiller for both farms and homes. Bayer disputes the cancer claims but has set aside $16 billion to settle cases and asserted Monday that the future of American agriculture is at stake.

In a court filing Friday, Bayer urged the Supreme Court to take up a Missouri case that awarded $1.25 million to a man who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after spraying Roundup on a community garden in St. Louis. The federally approved label for Roundup includes no warning of cancer. Bayer contends federal pesticide laws preempt states from adopting additional labeling for products and thus prohibits failure-to-warn lawsuits brought under state laws.

The Supreme Court in 2022 declined to hear a similar claim from Bayer in a California case that awarded more than $86 million to a married couple.

But Germany-based Bayer, which acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, contends the Supreme Court should intervene now because lower courts have issued conflicting rulings. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Bayer's favor last year while the 9th and 11th Circuits have ruled against its stance.

An attorney representing the St. Louis gardener said Bayer is “really grasping at straws."

“The reality is they don’t want to put the warning on it because they’re afraid" that if people "realize it’s unsafe, it will reduce sales,” said attorney Jim Onder, whose firm has more than 20,000 clients with failure-to-warn claims regarding Roundup.

Bayer faces about 181,000 Roundup claims, mostly from residential users.

Because of that, Bayer stopped using the key ingredient glyphosate in Roundup sold in the U.S. residential lawn and garden market. But glyphosate remains in agricultural products. It's designed to be used with genetically modified seeds that can resist the weedkiller’s deadly effect, thus allowing farmers to produce more while conserving the soil by tilling it less.

Bayer has said it might have to consider pulling glyphosate from U.S. agricultural markets if the lawsuits persist.

“This is a bigger threat to innovation in general, when we think about agriculture," said Jess Christiansen, head of communications for Bayer’s crop science division. "If glyphosate falls to the litigation industry, what could be next?”

Bayer has made similar arguments to lawmakers in several states. Georgia recently became the first to pass legislation backed by Bayer that would deem federally approved pesticide labels sufficient to satisfy any state-law duty to warn customers. Gov. Brian Kemp has not indicated whether he will sign the bill.

A jury in Georgia recently ordered Bayer to pay nearly $2.1 billion to a man who claimed Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Legislation barring similar state failure-to-warn claims for pesticide makers passed the Tennessee Senate on Thursday and the North Dakota House earlier this year and is now pending in the second chamber in each state.

Bayer also has focused heavily on Missouri and Iowa, home respectively to its North America crop science division and a Roundup manufacturing facility.

The Republican-led Missouri House narrowly passed the legislation in February. But a coalition of Republican senators has vowed to block it. State Sen. Nick Schroer has said it “would be a betrayal to the public trust” and the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial to grant “immunity” to pesticide manufacturers against particular legal claims.

Similar legislation advanced through the Iowa Senate this year with exclusively Republican support. But the Iowa House declined to bring the bill forward before last week’s legislative deadline. Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley told reporters Thursday “there’s not support” within the Republican House caucus at this time.

The bill drew staunch opposition from environmental justice groups that denounced it as a “cancer gag act,” saying it would limit the rights of Iowans to hold pesticide companies accountable if their products cause harm. During a February protest at the Iowa capitol building, speakers took turns telling stories of family members throughout the state who have been diagnosed with cancers.

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Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut contributed from Des Moines, Iowa.