What Bayer’s Recent Roundup Trial Wins Mean for Ongoing Lawsuits
Editors carefully fact-check all Drugwatch.com content for accuracy and quality.
Drugwatch.com has a stringent fact-checking process. It starts with our strict sourcing guidelines.
We only gather information from credible sources. This includes peer-reviewed medical journals, reputable media outlets, government reports, court records and interviews with qualified experts.
As Roundup lawsuits mounted in recent years, it had become commonplace to see plaintiffs earn major wins in court. Verdicts have ranged from $3.5 million for one plaintiff in December 2023 to a massive $2.25 billion in damages for a Pennsylvania man in January that was later reduced to $400 million.
But the last few weeks have painted a different picture, with Bayer racking up several wins. The latest victory came on Sep. 12, when a Philadelphia jury determined that Roundup is defective but did not cause plaintiff Ryan Young’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
That jury reached this verdict shortly after a Missouri appeals court upheld a Bayer win from 2022. The company saw perhaps its biggest win in August when the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia contradicted previous rulings and sided with Bayer on the issue of federal preemption, creating a circuit split.
The mixed results among recent trials – along with Bayer’s continued push to get Roundup litigation in front of the U.S. Supreme Court – may cloud expectations for ongoing lawsuits.
What Caused Bayer’s Recent Run of Roundup Wins?
Contributing to the uncertainty surrounding Roundup litigation is the absence of a clear common factor behind Bayer’s recent trial victories over the past few weeks. Each case’s win was due to different deciding factors.
In the most recent trial in Philadelphia, for example, the jury came to the somewhat unusual conclusion that Roundup is in fact defective but still not responsible for Young’s cancer. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Judge Angelo Foglietta said that the nearly month-long trial was the longest he had overseen in his tenure.
In Bayer’s recent appeals court win, which affirmed a previous victory for the company, one of the primary deciding factors had been the testimony of the plaintiff’s expert. Both the original circuit court and appeals court determined that the expert, a clinical oncologist, was not qualified to discuss causation between Roundup and the development of cancer.
And in what may be Bayer’s most critical win, a Philadelphia appeals court overturned a plaintiff win. The court ruled that federal law preempts any state laws or regulations the company may have violated by not including cancer warning labels.
These events are a departure from previous Philadelphia rulings, in which juries had awarded multiple victories – and major payouts – to Roundup plaintiffs.
What Recent Results Could Mean for Future Roundup Lawsuits
Bayer says that it has now received favorable outcomes in 14 of its last 20 Roundup trials. Clearly, the company has built momentum following the last few weeks of wins.
But the tide may change depending on the results of upcoming lawsuits.
A new Philadelphia trial, the sixth one in this state, began on Sep. 16. Despite Young’s recent loss, this trial may follow the path of previous trials in the state that have awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts for plaintiffs. Lawsuits against Bayer and Monsanto are still growing, with over 4,300 cases pending in multidistrict litigation.
The biggest threat to plaintiffs in future lawsuits may be Bayer’s win in Schaffner v. Monsanto, the appeals court ruling that established federal preemption. Lawsuits that rely on claims that Roundup products should have carried cancer warnings due to state laws may now have a more difficult path to success.
Bayer has been upfront about its plans to leverage that decision in upcoming litigation.
“The Company is actively taking steps to apply the Schaffner ruling to other Roundup cases and looks forward to presenting its arguments, as fully embraced by the Third Circuit, at trial courts, appellate courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court,” the company said in a statement following its most recent win.
However, the ruling in Schaffner v. Monsanto was not definitive, since it contradicted and created a circuit split with two previous rulings by the Ninth Circuit and Eleventh Circuit courts, which had ruled that the federal law in question does not preempt state law.
The Supreme Court may reach a final decision on federal preemption if Roundup litigation continues to work its way up to that level.
Editor Lindsay Donaldson contributed to this article.