Roundup Cancer Lawsuits in Philadelphia: What the Supreme Court’s FIFRA Preemption Ruling Means for Your Case
You used Roundup for years. Maybe you sprayed it around the yard every weekend. Maybe you handled it at work, on a farm, at a greenhouse, on a landscaping crew. You did not think twice about it because the bottle never said it could give you cancer. Then the diagnosis came — Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma — and somewhere in the months of chemotherapy and doctors’ appointments and fear, you heard that the weedkiller might be why. You may have even heard that juries in Philadelphia were awarding enormous verdicts against the company that made it. And then you heard the Supreme Court changed the rules. Now you are sitting at a kitchen table at 2 a.m. wondering whether your case still exists.
We are going to tell you, straight, what the ruling did and what it did not do. The short answer is this: the Supreme Court eliminated one legal theory — failure to warn — but it did not eliminate your case. Other claims survive. Design defect. Negligence. Fraudulent concealment. The company that made Roundup is still answerable for the product it put into the world and the way it handled the science behind it. What changed is the shape of the fight, not whether there is one.
What the Supreme Court Actually Decided in Monsanto Co. v. Durnell
In a 7-2 ruling, the United States Supreme Court held that state courts cannot hear failure-to-warn claims against Monsanto over Roundup. The reasoning runs through a federal statute called the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodentical Act — known as FIFRA — which governs how pesticides are registered, labeled, and sold in this country. Under FIFRA, the Environmental Protection Agency reviews and approves the label that goes on every pesticide product. The EPA reviewed Roundup’s label and did not require a cancer warning. The Supreme Court held that because federal law required Monsanto to sell Roundup with the EPA-approved label — the label without a cancer warning — state courts cannot impose a different labeling requirement through tort law.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Kavanaugh, put it this way:
“In sum, federal law requires Monsanto to sell Roundup with the label that EPA approved at the initial registration and that EPA has subsequently reapproved on multiple occasions — that is, the label without a cancer warning.”
The preemption clause at the center of the ruling is the provision of FIFRA that prohibits states from imposing labeling or packaging requirements “in addition to or different from” those required under federal law. The Court held that a state-law failure-to-warn claim functions as an impermissible state labeling requirement — because finding Monsanto liable for failing to warn about cancer would effectively force the company to add a cancer warning to its label, which the EPA had specifically declined to require.
Not every justice agreed. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, that adding a cancer warning would actually be consistent with FIFRA’s own prohibition on misbranding — the federal law’s own requirement that pesticide labels not be misleading. Her argument was that a label that omits a known cancer risk is itself a form of misbranding, and warning about that risk aligns with federal law rather than conflicting with it. The dissent did not carry the day, but it signals that the preemption question was not unanimous and that the legal terrain may continue to shift.
The case arose from Missouri, where a state court jury found that Roundup use caused a man’s cancer and that Monsanto should have included a cancer warning on the product’s label. He was awarded $1.25 million for the company’s failure to warn. Monsanto appealed, arguing that FIFRA preempted the failure-to-warn theory because the EPA had concluded that glyphosate — the active chemical in Roundup — is not cancer-causing and therefore the label did not need a warning. The Supreme Court agreed.
What This Ruling Eliminates — and What Survives
Here is the distinction that matters most to your case. The Supreme Court eliminated failure-to-warn claims. It did not eliminate every claim against Monsanto.
A failure-to-warn claim says: the company knew its product was dangerous and did not put an adequate warning on the label. That theory is now preempted in state court. You cannot sue Monsanto in a Pennsylvania courtroom and argue that the Roundup label should have carried a cancer warning, because the Supreme Court has said that FIFRA — federal law — controls what goes on that label, and the EPA approved it without one.
But a Roundup lawsuit was never built on one theory alone. In the largest Philadelphia verdict to date — a $2.25 billion jury award returned in 2024 — the jury found Monsanto liable on three separate grounds: failure to warn, negligence, and design defect. The failure-to-warn finding is now preempted. The negligence and design-defect findings rest on different legal foundations that do not necessarily require a label change, and those theories may survive.
A design defect claim says: this product is unreasonably dangerous as designed — the formulation itself is hazardous, and a safer alternative design existed. That claim does not require Monsanto to change its label. It challenges the product itself. The Supreme Court’s ruling does not address design defect claims, and nothing in FIFRA’s preemption clause automatically bars them.
A negligence claim says: the company failed to exercise reasonable care in testing, researching, and marketing the product. Internal corporate documents showing that Monsanto recognized cancer risks, ghostwrote scientific literature to downplay those risks, or influenced regulatory assessments — these support a negligence theory that does not depend on what the label said. The Supreme Court’s ruling does not eliminate negligence claims.
A fraudulent concealment or negligent misrepresentation claim says: the company actively misrepresented the safety of its product to regulators, the scientific community, and consumers. That is a claim about the company’s conduct — what it said and did behind closed doors — not about what was printed on the bottle. It survives.
The company itself has characterized failure-to-warn claims as making up the “vast majority” of the litigation. Bayer’s CEO said the ruling provides “regulatory clarity” and brings “overdue justice on an issue that should have been clarified much earlier.” That is the company’s perspective — and it tells you something about what the defense considers its strongest remaining weapon. But “vast majority” is not “all,” and the remaining theories are the ones that have produced some of the most damaging evidence at trial.
The 462 Active Cases in Philadelphia — Current Docket Status
There are 462 active lawsuits against Monsanto in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas — specifically, in the Complex Litigation Center, which coordinates mass tort programs in Philadelphia County. These cases are not frozen by the Supreme Court ruling. They are not dismissed. They proceed — but with a narrower set of legal questions for juries to answer.
The Philadelphia Complex Litigation Center operates under specialized case management orders that govern discovery, bellwether case selection, and trial scheduling. In a mass tort docket of this size, the court selects certain cases as bellwethers — test trials designed to produce verdicts that inform settlement values for the remaining docket. Philadelphia has held seven Roundup trials to date. Monsanto has lost four of them. Those verdicts were built on multiple theories — not failure-to-warn alone — which is precisely why the docket retains leverage even after the preemption ruling.
Philadelphia is one of the most plaintiff-favorable mass tort venues in the United States. The juries are diverse, urban, and historically less sympathetic to corporate defendants than juries in suburban Pennsylvania counties. That reputation influences national settlement dynamics — when Philadelphia juries return large verdicts, the defendant feels pressure to resolve the broader docket. The Supreme Court ruling narrows the legal field but does not change the venue. Philadelphia juries will still hear these cases.
The open question is how the ruling affects trial outcomes. Juries will answer fewer questions — the failure-to-warn theory is off the table — but the questions that remain (was the product defectively designed? was the company negligent?) are the ones where internal corporate documents about ghostwriting, regulatory manipulation, and suppressed science do the most damage. The narrowing may reduce verdict sizes. It does not eliminate them.
Pennsylvania Product Liability Law: The Framework That Governs Your Case
Pennsylvania applies strict product liability under the framework articulated by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Tincher v. Omega Flex, a landmark decision that restructured how Pennsylvania courts handle product liability claims. Under Tincher, a plaintiff must prove that a product is “unreasonably dangerous” — and Pennsylvania law offers two tests for making that showing: the consumer-expectation test (the product was more dangerous than an ordinary consumer would expect) or the risk-utility test (the danger outweighed the product’s utility and a safer alternative design was feasible).
This framework matters because it governs the design defect claims that survive the Supreme Court’s preemption ruling. To prove that Roundup was defectively designed under Pennsylvania law, the case must show either that the product was more dangerous than an ordinary consumer expected when buying a weedkiller off a hardware store shelf, or that the risks of glyphosate-based formulation outweighed its benefits and a safer alternative existed. Expert testimony bridges the gap — epidemiologists, toxicologists, and clinical oncologists who can explain the mechanism by which glyphosate exposure causes lymphatic cancer and who can address whether alternative formulations or adequate safety measures could have reduced the risk.
Pennsylvania imposes no statutory cap on compensatory damages in personal injury or wrongful death cases. There is no general statutory cap on punitive damages in product liability actions against corporate defendants. Pennsylvania punitive damages require a showing of outrageous conduct — conduct with an evil motive or reckless indifference to the rights of others. In the Roundup litigation, allegations that Monsanto ghostwrote scientific papers, influenced regulatory reviews, and internally recognized cancer risks while publicly marketing Roundup as safe are the factual engine that drives punitive exposure. Those allegations survive the preemption ruling because they support negligence and fraudulent concealment theories, not failure-to-warn.
Pennsylvania follows a modified comparative negligence rule that bars recovery when the plaintiff is 51 percent or more at fault. In practice, comparative fault is rarely a significant factor in Roundup cases — the core dispute is whether the product caused the cancer and whether the company’s conduct was wrongful, not whether the user was careless for spraying weedkiller. But the defense will explore every angle, and any plaintiff’s case is stronger when the exposure history is well-documented.
The Statute of Limitations: The Clock That Kills Cases Silently
Pennsylvania’s personal injury statute of limitations generally runs two years from the date the injury occurred or was discovered. For toxic exposure cases like Roundup, the discovery rule is critical — the clock does not start on the day you sprayed Roundup. It starts when you knew or reasonably should have known that you had cancer and that your cancer was connected to your Roundup exposure.
That distinction is the difference between a case that is alive and one that is dead on arrival. Many people diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma never immediately connect their cancer to a weedkiller they used years or decades earlier. The discovery rule acknowledges that reality — but it is not a blank check. The defense will argue that you “should have known” earlier, pointing to media coverage of Roundup litigation, scientific studies about glyphosate, or the 2015 IARC classification as moments when a reasonable person would have connected their diagnosis to the exposure. The earlier you act, the less room the defense has to make that argument.
If you have lost a loved one to lymphoma and believe Roundup exposure was the cause, wrongful death and survival actions may be viable. In Pennsylvania, the wrongful death statute of limitations runs separately from the survival claim, and the deadlines can differ — confirming the current rule for both is something we handle the moment you call.
The Science: Glyphosate and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
The scientific fault line in this litigation runs between two regulatory bodies that reached opposite conclusions about the same chemical.
In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer — IARC, the cancer-research arm of the World Health Organization — classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” placing it in Group 2A. That classification was based on a review of scientific evidence including epidemiological studies showing an association between glyphosate exposure and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, along with mechanistic evidence suggesting that glyphosate can cause DNA damage through genotoxicity and oxidative stress.
The Environmental Protection Agency has historically taken the position that glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” The EPA’s registration of glyphosate for use — and its repeated reapproval of Roundup’s label without a cancer warning — is the factual foundation of Monsanto’s preemption defense. The Supreme Court deferred to the EPA’s position in holding that FIFRA preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims.
This regulatory divergence — one agency saying “probably carcinogenic,” another saying “not likely carcinogenic” — is not a tie. It is the battleground. Your case does not need to resolve the disagreement between IARC and the EPA. It needs to show that the scientific evidence supports a causal connection between your glyphosate exposure and your cancer — and that Monsanto knew or should have known about that risk.
Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system — the network of vessels and nodes that carries infection-fighting white blood cells through the body. There are more than 70 subtypes of NHL, and the prognosis varies significantly depending on the subtype, the stage at diagnosis, the patient’s age and overall health, and the response to treatment. Treatment typically involves chemotherapy regimens, sometimes combined with radiation therapy, immunotherapy (such as monoclonal antibody drugs like rituximab), and in aggressive or relapsed cases, stem cell transplants. Some patients face years of ongoing oncological monitoring, maintenance therapy, and the persistent risk of relapse. In terminal cases, the disease progresses to hospice and death.
The latency between glyphosate exposure and cancer diagnosis can span years or even decades. That delay creates two proof problems the defense exploits. First, the defense argues that the plaintiff cannot reconstruct how much Roundup they used, how often, and over what period — the dose reconstruction problem. Second, the defense argues that Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma has many causes and that the plaintiff cannot exclude other potential sources — the specific causation problem. Both are answerable with the right evidence: documented purchase records, employment history, witness statements about usage patterns, and expert testimony from toxicologists and oncologists who can perform differential diagnosis and dose-response analysis.
Who Can File a Roundup Lawsuit in Pennsylvania
You may have a viable claim if you meet three conditions. First, you used Roundup — or another glyphosate-based herbicide manufactured by Monsanto — for a period of time and with a frequency that constitutes meaningful exposure. This includes homeowners who sprayed regularly over years, agricultural workers, landscapers, groundskeepers, farmers, nursery workers, and anyone whose job involved handling or applying glyphosate products. Second, you were diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma or a related lymphatic cancer. Third, a reasonable medical and scientific basis exists to connect your cancer to your glyphosate exposure — which is established through expert analysis of your exposure history, your medical records, and the scientific literature.
The strength of the exposure history is often the single most important variable in an individual case. A homeowner who sprayed Roundup every weekend for fifteen years has a stronger exposure narrative than someone who used it once or twice. An agricultural worker who mixed and applied concentrated glyphosate products daily for a decade has a stronger case than someone who occasionally used a ready-mixed bottle on a few weeds. But even moderate residential exposure can support a claim when the medical evidence is strong and the latency timeline is consistent.
If your loved one used Roundup and died from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, the family may pursue wrongful death and survival claims. The personal representative — the person the court authorizes to bring the estate’s case — files on behalf of the family. Wrongful death damages compensate the surviving family for the economic and emotional loss of the decedent. Survival damages preserve the decedent’s own claim for the pain, suffering, and lost earnings they experienced between the injury and death. We handle the appointment of the personal representative and the filing of both claims.
Damages in Roundup Cases: What the Law Allows
Pennsylvania imposes no cap on compensatory damages in product liability cases. That means a jury can award the full measure of economic and non-economic harm without a statutory ceiling cutting the number down.
Economic damages include past and future medical expenses — the chemotherapy, the radiation, the stem cell transplant, the ongoing oncological monitoring, the prescriptions, the hospital stays, the ambulance bills. They include lost wages and diminished earning capacity — the income you lost during treatment and the income you will never earn because the disease or its aftermath changed what you can do. They include future medical care — a life-care planner projects the cost of ongoing treatment, monitoring, and medication across your expected lifespan, and a forensic economist reduces that stream to present value so the jury can award it as a single number.
Non-economic damages include pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of life’s pleasures, and disfigurement. These are the human costs no receipt can measure — the terror of a cancer diagnosis, the misery of chemotherapy, the exhaustion of treatment, the fear of relapse, the relationships strained, the activities abandoned, the life that was planned and will never be lived the same way.
Punitive damages are a significant driver in this litigation. Pennsylvania punitive damages require a showing of outrageous conduct — an evil motive or reckless indifference to the rights of others. The allegations in this docket are tailor-made for that standard: internal Monsanto documents showing the company recognized cancer risks, ghostwrote scientific literature to downplay those risks, and influenced regulatory assessments to maintain the EPA’s favorable position. Those allegations support both liability and punishment. And Pennsylvania has no general statutory cap on punitive damages in product liability actions against corporate defendants.
Case values in this docket range widely. The forensic analysis of this litigation places individual case values from approximately $500,000 on the low end to $25 million or more on the high end, depending on the cancer subtype and staging, the duration and intensity of glyphosate exposure, the plaintiff’s age and earning capacity, and the strength of specific causation evidence. Philadelphia verdicts in prior Roundup trials have reached eight and nine figures including punitive damages — though many have been reduced on post-trial motions or appeal, and every verdict must be understood with its full procedural history. A jury number is not a final number until the appeals process is exhausted.
The Supreme Court’s preemption ruling creates what we call a bipolar value distribution. If the surviving theories — design defect, negligence, fraudulent concealment — continue to produce substantial verdicts, the docket retains full settlement and verdict leverage against a defendant with extraordinary financial depth. If those theories prove harder to win on without the failure-to-warn engine, the docket’s value contracts. The bellwether trials that follow the ruling will tell the story. What we know now is that the case is not over — it is reshaped.
The Evidence Clock: What Disappears and When
Every Roundup case lives on evidence that has a shelf life. Some of it is fading right now.
Your exposure history is the most perishable piece of your case. Memory degrades. Witnesses move. Purchase records from hardware stores and garden centers become unavailable as those retailers cycle through their transaction archives. If you used Roundup at work, employment records, pesticide application logs, and co-worker testimony about your duties and exposure levels are all time-sensitive. The defense’s favorite argument against specific causation is that the plaintiff “cannot prove how much Roundup they used” — and every year that passes between exposure and documentation makes that argument stronger. We lock in your exposure narrative early, with a detailed intake that captures the products, the frequency, the duration, the application methods, and the names of anyone who can corroborate.
Your medical records are the foundation of both damages and causation. Pathology reports that confirm the NHL diagnosis and identify the specific subtype. Treatment records that document the chemotherapy regimen, the radiation, the stem cell transplant, the hospitalizations, the side effects. Imaging studies that show disease progression or response. Oncologist notes that describe your prognosis. These records exist in hospital and clinic archives, but provider retention policies purge older records on fixed schedules — and once they are gone, they are gone. We subpoena the complete treatment file early.
Monsanto corporate documents are the evidence that drives the punitive case. Internal emails discussing cancer-risk awareness. Documents showing ghostwriting of scientific papers. Communications with EPA officials about regulatory assessments. Marketing materials that promoted Roundup as safe. Much of this has been produced through prior national Roundup discovery, but supplemental custodian searches and deposition lock-down remain time-sensitive as the case moves toward trial. These documents do not disappear the way your personal records do — but getting them admitted at trial requires advance preparation and expert framing.
Expert reports are the bridge between the science and your specific case. General causation experts — epidemiologists and toxicologists who can explain the glyphosate-NHL link — provide the scientific foundation. Specific causation experts — clinical oncologists who can perform differential diagnosis and connect your cancer to your exposure — provide the individualized proof. Pennsylvania follows a Daubert-style expert admissibility standard, meaning the court evaluates the reliability of expert testimony before allowing it before a jury. Expert preparation timelines are long — months, not weeks — and Daubert challenges are a primary defense motion in mass tort proceedings. The earlier expert work begins, the stronger the case stands up to that challenge.
The Defendant: Monsanto and Bayer — Corporate Structure and Deep Pockets
Monsanto Company is the original manufacturer, designer, and marketer of Roundup. It is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bayer AG, the German pharmaceutical and agricultural conglomerate that acquired Monsanto in 2018. That acquisition was the moment the liability crossed the ocean — Bayer assumed all of Monsanto’s Roundup exposure as part of the deal, and the German parent has borne the financial and reputational consequences ever since.
Bayer has described its approach to Roundup litigation as a “multi-pronged containment strategy” — a phrase that tells you exactly how the company thinks about these cases. The strategy has three prongs: litigating aggressively (including the Supreme Court appeal that produced the preemption ruling), pursuing legislative or regulatory solutions, and negotiating settlements. Bayer has proposed a nationwide class-action settlement of up to $7.25 billion to resolve future Roundup claims — a framework that would pay claimants based on exposure and diagnosis criteria while capping the company’s ongoing exposure.
That proposed settlement is not a done deal. It faces court scrutiny, claimant opt-out pressure, and the ongoing possibility that the litigation landscape shifts again. The Supreme Court ruling strengthens Bayer’s negotiating position — with failure-to-warn preempted, the threat of large verdicts based on that theory is gone — but the surviving theories and the plaintiff-friendly Philadelphia venue still exert pressure in the other direction.
The corporate structure matters because it determines where the money is. Monsanto is the named defendant in every Philadelphia case. Bayer is the parent that ultimately pays. Potential retail and supply-chain defendants — distributors and retailers in the chain of commerce — may also be joined under Pennsylvania strict product liability theory, though the primary liability and deep-pocket focus centers on Monsanto and Bayer. Bayer is one of the largest pharmaceutical and agricultural companies in the world. The resources to pay a substantial verdict or settlement exist. The question is whether the surviving legal theories produce enough leverage to extract that payment.
The Defense Playbook: What Monsanto Will Do and How We Answer
In a mass tort docket like this, the “adjuster” is not a friendly voice on the phone offering a quick check. The defense is a team of corporate lawyers executing a coordinated strategy. Here are the plays they run — and the counters.
Play 1: The preemption shield. “The Supreme Court said we don’t need a cancer warning on the label, so you cannot sue us.” The counter: the ruling eliminated failure-to-warn, not the entire case. Design defect challenges the product, not the label. Negligence challenges the company’s conduct, not the label. Fraudulent concealment challenges what the company said and did behind closed doors, not what was printed on the bottle. The Supreme Court narrowed the field. It did not clear it.
Play 2: The EPA-compliance narrative. “The EPA approved our product and said glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer. We followed the rules.” The counter: EPA approval is a regulatory floor, not a stamp of safety. The IARC — the world’s leading cancer research authority — classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans. Regulatory agencies can disagree, and a jury is entitled to hear both sides. Compliance with one agency’s minimum standard does not immunize a company from accountability for the scientific evidence it knew about, suppressed, or misrepresented.
Play 3: The specific causation challenge. “Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma has many causes. You cannot prove that YOUR cancer came from Roundup and not from something else.” The counter: specific causation is established through expert differential diagnosis — a clinical oncologist who reviews your full medical and exposure history, rules out other known causes of NHL, and concludes that glyphosate exposure was a substantial contributing factor. The defense will always argue “it could have been something else.” The answer is to build the exposure history so thoroughly and the medical analysis so rigorously that the alternative-cause argument becomes speculation, not science.
Play 4: The statute of limitations defense. “You waited too long. You should have known about the Roundup-cancer connection years ago.” The counter: the discovery rule tolls the clock until you knew or reasonably should have known of both the injury and its causal connection to the exposure. Many people diagnosed with NHL never immediately connect it to a weedkiller. The defense will point to media coverage and scientific publications as moments when you “should have known” — but the law asks what a reasonable person in your specific circumstances would have known, and that is a jury question, not a defense talking point.
Play 5: The settlement squeeze. “The Supreme Court ruling weakened your case. Take what we are offering now, before it gets worse.” The counter: the ruling changed the legal landscape, but it did not eliminate the case. Bellwether trials on the surviving theories will establish what the docket is worth now. Settling before those verdicts come in means accepting the defense’s narrative about what your case is worth — not the market’s. Patience and trial readiness are leverage. The company wants to resolve these cases. The question is at what number.
How a Roundup Case Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk of a Roundup case from intake to resolution — the work that happens behind the courtroom door.
The first step is the exposure interview. We sit with you and build a detailed history: what products you used (Roundup, Roundup Pro, generic glyphosate concentrates), how you applied them (handheld sprayer, backpack sprayer, truck-mounted rig), how often (weekly, monthly, seasonally), for how many years, in what quantities, and under what conditions (wind, heat, concentrated mixing). We identify corroborating witnesses — family members who watched you spray, co-workers who handled the same products, employers who can confirm your duties. We gather purchase records from hardware stores, garden centers, and agricultural supply companies. Every detail is documented while memory is fresh and records still exist.
The second step is the medical file. We subpoena every relevant record: the pathology report that confirmed the NHL diagnosis and identified the subtype, the staging workup, every chemotherapy administration record, every radiation treatment plan, every hospitalization, every oncologist visit, every lab result, every imaging study. These records establish the damages — what the cancer has cost you in dollars and in suffering — and they establish the medical foundation for the causation analysis.
The third step is expert selection and preparation. General causation experts — epidemiologists who study the glyphosate-NHL link in populations, toxicologists who understand the mechanism by which glyphosate may cause lymphatic cancer, and mechanistic scientists who study genotoxicity and oxidative stress pathways — provide the scientific framework. Specific causation experts — clinical oncologists who can review your individual history and testify that your cancer was caused by your glyphosate exposure — provide the individualized bridge. Pennsylvania’s Daubert standard means these experts must be prepared to withstand a rigorous admissibility challenge. That preparation takes months. It begins early.
The fourth step is discovery — the process by which we obtain Monsanto’s internal documents. Much has been produced through prior national Roundup litigation, but each case requires targeted discovery focused on the specific issues in your claim: what Monsanto knew about the cancer risk and when, what it told regulators versus what it knew internally, what scientific papers it ghostwrote or influenced, how it marketed Roundup to consumers like you. Depositions of Monsanto corporate witnesses follow — the scientists, the regulatory affairs personnel, the marketing executives who made decisions about how Roundup was presented to the public.
The fifth step is the bellwether or individual trial. In the Philadelphia mass tort docket, some cases are selected as bellwethers — test trials whose verdicts inform settlement values. Other cases proceed individually. In either path, the trial is where the evidence meets the jury. Philadelphia juries have historically been willing to hold corporate defendants accountable, and the internal Monsanto documents that have already proven devastating at trial — emails about ghostwriting, memos about regulatory influence, internal acknowledgments of cancer risk — remain admissible on the surviving theories.
The number at the end is built from all of it. The exposure history that proves you used the product. The medical records that prove the cancer. The expert testimony that connects them. The corporate documents that prove what the company knew. The life-care plan that prices the future. The economist who reduces it to present value. None of it is speculation. It is work — the kind of work that takes months and demands a team that has done it before.
What to Do If You Used Roundup and Were Diagnosed With Cancer
If you are reading this page, you may already be in treatment or already in remission. You may be the family member of someone who died. Whatever your moment, here is what to do — and what not to do.
Do document your exposure history now. Sit down and write out everything you can remember: the brand names (Roundup, Roundup Pro, generic glyphosate), where you bought it, how often you used it, how many years, how you mixed and applied it, whether you wore protective equipment, whether you were exposed to drift or overspray. Include names of anyone who can corroborate — family, friends, co-workers, employers. This document becomes the foundation of your case, and it is most accurate when you write it while the memories are sharpest.
Do gather your medical records. Request copies of your pathology report, your treatment summaries, your imaging studies, your oncologist’s notes, your medication administration records, your hospital discharge summaries. Keep everything. If you cannot obtain records yourself, we can subpoena them — but having them organized accelerates the process.
Do not give a recorded statement to anyone from Monsanto, Bayer, or any insurance company representing them. A friendly call asking you to “just tell us what happened” is a recorded statement engineered to be quoted against you later. Do not agree to it. Do not sign anything. Do not accept a quick settlement check that arrives before you have spoken to a lawyer — it will come with a release attached, and signing it ends your case forever.
Do not post about your case on social media. The defense monitors plaintiff social media accounts for posts that can be taken out of context — a photo of you at a family barbecue used to argue you are not really suffering, a comment about your treatment timeline used to argue you knew about the Roundup connection earlier than you claim. Assume everything you post is being read by someone whose job is to use it against you.
Do call a lawyer who handles toxic tort cases. Not a generalist. Not a firm that handles car wrecks and occasionally takes a product case. Toxic tort litigation is a specialized practice that demands expertise in epidemiology, regulatory law, mass tort coordination, and the specific scientific literature connecting glyphosate to lymphatic cancer. The firm you choose should be able to explain, in plain language, the difference between general causation and specific causation, what Daubert means for your experts, and how the Philadelphia Complex Litigation Center operates. If we are not the right fit for your case, we will tell you — but the conversation is free, and what you learn in it belongs to you whether you hire us or not.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still sue Monsanto after the Supreme Court ruling?
Yes — if your case includes theories beyond failure to warn. The Supreme Court eliminated failure-to-warn claims in state court, holding that FIFRA preempts them because the EPA approved Roundup’s label without a cancer warning. But design defect claims (the product is unreasonably dangerous as designed), negligence claims (the company failed to exercise reasonable care in testing and marketing), and fraudulent concealment claims (the company misrepresented the safety of its product) may survive because they do not require a label change. Your case is not erased. It is narrowed.
What if I already filed a Roundup lawsuit — does the ruling dismiss my case?
No. The ruling eliminates one claim from your lawsuit — the failure-to-warn count. If your complaint includes design defect, negligence, or fraudulent concealment claims, those proceed. The Philadelphia Complex Litigation Center is managing the 462-case docket under existing case management orders, and the court will narrow the claims that go to trial but will not dismiss cases that include surviving theories. Your attorney should be reviewing your complaint now to confirm which theories remain viable and whether amendment is needed to strengthen the surviving counts.
I used Roundup for years and was just diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma — is it too late to file?
Pennsylvania’s personal injury statute of limitations is generally two years, but the discovery rule for toxic exposure cases means the clock typically starts when you knew or reasonably should have known that your cancer was connected to your Roundup use. If you only recently learned of the connection, your clock may have just started. But the defense will argue you should have known earlier — pointing to media coverage of Roundup litigation, the 2015 IARC classification, or other public information. The earlier you act, the stronger your timeliness argument. Waiting is the single most common way a viable case becomes a dead one.
What types of cancer are linked to Roundup?
The primary cancer linked to Roundup and glyphosate exposure in this litigation is Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma — a cancer of the lymphatic system that includes more than 70 subtypes. Related lymphatic cancers may also be connected. The IARC classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” (Group 2A) in 2015, citing epidemiological evidence of an association with NHL and mechanistic evidence of genotoxicity. The EPA has historically maintained that glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” This regulatory divergence is the scientific fault line of the litigation, and your case must be built on expert testimony that bridges the gap for your specific diagnosis and exposure history.
How much is a Roundup cancer case worth?
Case values in this docket range from approximately $500,000 on the low end to $25 million or more on the high end, depending on the cancer subtype and staging, the duration and intensity of glyphosate exposure, the plaintiff’s age and earning capacity, and the strength of specific causation evidence. Philadelphia verdicts in prior Roundup trials have reached eight and nine figures including punitive damages, though many have been reduced on post-trial motions or appeal. The Supreme Court’s preemption ruling may affect verdict sizes by eliminating the failure-to-warn theory, but it does not eliminate the case. Every case is valued individually based on its specific facts — no lawyer can promise a number, and any firm that does is not being honest with you.
Does the Supreme Court ruling affect paraquat cases too?
The ruling’s logic could extend to other pesticide product liability cases, including those against manufacturers of paraquat-based herbicides linked to Parkinson’s disease. FIFRA’s preemption clause applies to all pesticides registered under the statute, and the same analysis — EPA-approved label versus state-law warning requirements — could apply to paraquat labels. However, each pesticide has its own regulatory history, its own scientific evidence, and its own litigation posture. The paraquat docket faces its own challenges, including significant Daubert fights over general causation evidence. The Roundup ruling signals the direction, but it does not automatically resolve every pesticide case.
What if my loved one died from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma after using Roundup?
Wrongful death and survival claims may be viable. In Pennsylvania, a personal representative appointed by the court brings the estate’s case. Wrongful death damages compensate the surviving family for the economic and emotional loss of the decedent — the lost financial support, the lost companionship, the grief. Survival damages preserve the decedent’s own claim for the pain, suffering, and lost earnings they experienced between the cancer diagnosis and death. The statute of limitations for wrongful death runs separately from the survival claim, and confirming the deadline for both is something we do immediately. If your loved one’s death certificate lists Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma as a cause, and they had a history of Roundup exposure, call us.
I heard Bayer is offering a class-action settlement — should I take it?
Bayer has proposed a nationwide class-action settlement of up to $7.25 billion to resolve future Roundup claims. That proposal is not a final, court-approved deal — it faces judicial scrutiny, claimant opt-out considerations, and the evolving litigation landscape. Before accepting any settlement offer — whether through the proposed class action or an individual resolution — you should understand what your case is worth on its own facts. A settlement that looks adequate today may look inadequate compared to what a Philadelphia jury could award on the surviving theories. Conversely, the preemption ruling has genuinely shifted leverage toward the defense, and the risk of a defense verdict is real. The decision to settle or try a case is the most important strategic choice in any litigation, and it should be made with a lawyer who can evaluate both paths honestly.
Why This Firm
Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he reads documents the way a reporter reads them — looking for the sentence the other side hoped nobody would find. In a Roundup case, those sentences are the ones buried in Monsanto’s internal emails, the ghostwriting arrangements, the regulatory-influence memos — the documents that prove what the company knew and when it knew it. Ralph leads the trial team, cross-examines the corporate witnesses, and stands in front of the jury. He handles toxic tort and mass tort cases with the depth the science demands.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where claims like yours are priced, devalued, and delayed. He sat across the table from the people who decide how much a cancer case is worth and how to make the plaintiff accept less. He knows the software that values claims, the tactics that adjusters use to minimize payouts, and the pressure points that move a defendant toward a fair number. Now he sits on your side of the table. He conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — hablamos Español — because the families who need this information are not all English-speaking, and the quality of the conversation should not depend on the language you pray in.
Our fee is contingency. Thirty-three and a third percent before trial. Forty percent if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The first conversation is free, and it costs you nothing to find out whether you have a viable claim. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — 1-888-288-9911 — at any hour. We have live staff 24/7, not an answering service.
If your family has been touched by Roundup and cancer, you can also learn more about our wrongful death practice or our full practice areas. And if you want to understand how case timelines work — how long this process takes from the day you call to the day a jury speaks — Ralph covers that here.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Supreme Court changed the rules. It did not end the game. Your case may still be viable — and the first step to finding out is a conversation that costs you nothing. Call us.