By Ryan Hanrahan
Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr reported that “the US Supreme Court gave Bayer AG a mixed reception on its bid to stop tens of thousands of lawsuits claiming its Roundup herbicide should have been labeled as a cancer risk. Hearing arguments in Washington Monday, the justices weighed a $1.25 million jury verdict won by a Missouri man who blamed Roundup for his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The company contends that since US regulators didn’t require a cancer warning, federal law bars the Missouri suit and others like it.”
“Bayer drew supportive comments from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who questioned whether lawsuits alleging a failure to warn could be squared with a provision in federal law requiring ‘uniformity’ in herbicide labels,” Stohr reported. “But Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that states considering new evidence that a product is risky should be allowed to ‘call this danger to the attention of the people.'”
“Bayer is looking to put an end to litigation that has cost the company more than $10 billion and depressed its stock price,” Stohr reported. “A ruling favoring the German company could also help the medical-device, cosmetic and food industries, which are governed by laws similar to the one at the center of the Bayer case. The court will rule by early July.”
Progressive Farmer’s Todd Neeley reported that “Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general representing Bayer in the case, reiterated before the court that federal law preempts state failure-to-warn claims. ‘Here, a Missouri jury imposed a cancer warning requirement that the EPA does not require,’ Clement told the court. ‘That additional requirement is preempted.'”
“Bayer argued that when EPA registers a pesticide and approves a label, it creates a binding federal requirement,” Neeley reported. “…Bayer also argued that a pesticide registrant cannot add a cancer warning without EPA approval, essentially making it impossible to comply with federal and state laws simultaneously.”
Source : illinois.edu