The Supreme Court Just Closed the Main Door on Roundup Cancer Cases — Here Is What That Actually Means for You
You heard the news and your stomach dropped. The Supreme Court ruled that Bayer — the company that makes Roundup — does not have to warn consumers about a potential cancer risk. You or someone you love used Roundup for years and then got non-Hodgkin lymphoma. You may already have a lawyer. You may have been thinking about calling one. Now you are staring at your phone at 2 a.m. wondering whether the courthouse door just slammed shut.
It did not slam all the way. The Supreme Court closed the biggest, most common door — the failure-to-warn claim, the theory that drove most of the verdicts and most of the settlements. But the ruling is not a blanket immunity for Bayer. It is a preemption ruling, grounded in one specific federal statute and one specific regulatory finding that is itself under a cloud. And there are other doors — fraud-based theories, design-defect theories, claims that the company manipulated the science it fed to the regulator — that may still be open.
We are writing this page for one person: someone in Missouri who used Roundup, developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and needs to understand what the Supreme Court’s 7-2 ruling in June 2026 means for their case, their family, and their future. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle toxic tort and product liability cases. Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. Lupe Peña spent years inside the insurance-defense industry before crossing to our side of the table. We know how the other side prices claims, how it builds defenses, and where the pressure points are. This page is legal information, not legal advice — but it is the kind of information that comes from lawyers who have lived these fights.
Is My Roundup Case Dead After the Supreme Court Ruling?
The honest answer is: your failure-to-warn claim is almost certainly preempted. But your case may not be dead, depending on which other theories your lawyer can plead and whether the facts of your exposure support them.
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that Bayer cannot be sued in state courts for failing to warn consumers about a potential cancer link to Roundup. The majority held that because the Environmental Protection Agency determined in 2020 that glyphosate — Roundup’s active ingredient — is “not likely” a human carcinogen and did not require a cancer warning on the label, federal law under FIFRA (the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) overrides any state-law claim that would require a different or additional warning.
That ruling directly targets the single theory that produced the $1.25 million jury verdict for the Missouri plaintiff in the underlying case, and the larger verdicts in other Roundup cases nationwide. If your case — pending or potential — is built on the argument that Monsanto should have put a cancer warning on the bottle and did not, that theory is now preempted in state court.
But here is what the ruling does not do. It does not immunize Bayer from every theory. It does not retroactively erase the scientific evidence linking glyphosate to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It does not change the fact that the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015. And it does not resolve the deep problem with the EPA’s own analysis — a federal appeals court already ruled the EPA did not adequately explain its determination, and the agency has not yet published a corrected version.
What this means practically: the legal strategy is shifting, not ending. The fight moves to theories that are not premised on what the label should have said — theories that target what the company did behind the scenes, how it influenced the regulatory process, and whether the product itself is unreasonably dangerous by design.
What Happened: The Missouri Case That Reached the Supreme Court
The plaintiff in the underlying case is a Missouri man who sued Monsanto in 2019, alleging that two decades of Roundup use caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A Missouri jury sided with him in 2023 and awarded $1.25 million in compensatory damages. Missouri has historically been a strong venue for plaintiffs in product liability actions — its courts apply pure comparative fault, impose no statutory caps on compensatory or punitive damages in product liability cases, and its jury pools in St. Louis City and St. Louis County have been receptive to toxic tort claims.
That favorable landscape is precisely why Monsanto’s corporate parent, Bayer, pushed the case to the Supreme Court rather than continue fighting in Missouri state courts. Bayer petitioned the Supreme Court to take the case on appeal, and the Trump administration backed Bayer’s petition — a reversal from the Biden administration, which had previously urged the Supreme Court to reject a similar Roundup appeal.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2026 was 7-2. The two dissenting justices were Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch — an unusual pairing that crossed the court’s usual ideological lines. Justice Jackson wrote in dissent that the majority’s decision “unjustifiably closes the courthouse doors” to plaintiffs like the Missouri man whose case was before the court.
“The decision is sickening and would have never happened had the administration not given Bayer Monsanto a favor.”
That quote is not from the dissent — it is from a public reaction by a prominent health advocacy voice, captured in the reporting on the ruling. But Justice Jackson’s own words in the dissent carry the legal weight. Her framing — that the majority “unjustifiably closes the courthouse doors” — is the language that lawyers building surviving theories will lean on as they re-plead cases around the preemption ruling.
The $1.25 million verdict that the Missouri jury returned in 2023 was a compensatory award. It represented the moderate end of Roundup verdicts nationally — other cases produced larger awards, including some with punitive damages in cases where the evidence of corporate misconduct was stronger. The Supreme Court’s ruling does not vacate that verdict by name; it establishes the legal principle that the theory behind it — failure to warn — is preempted by federal law. What happens to the Durnell verdict specifically depends on the procedural posture of the remand, which is being litigated.
The Science Conflict: IARC vs. EPA on Glyphosate
This is not a case where the science is settled and the law simply followed it. The science is openly, publicly, and institutionally divided — and the division matters enormously for any surviving legal theory.
In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer — the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization — classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” IARC’s analysis relied primarily on peer-reviewed research. A 2019 analysis in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe found a “compelling link” between human exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides and an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A 2023 study of male farmers found an association between glyphosate exposure and oxidative stress, a recognized marker of cancer development. A study published in 2025 found that even low doses of glyphosate caused cancer in rats.
In 2020, during the first Trump administration, the EPA issued an interim determination that glyphosate is “unlikely” to be a human carcinogen and did not require a cancer warning label. The EPA’s analysis relied primarily on unpublished studies — some of which were commissioned by the pesticide industry.
Here is the critical fact that the Supreme Court’s majority did not resolve: the EPA’s 2020 determination was challenged by environmental groups, and a federal appeals court — the Ninth Circuit — ruled that the EPA had not adequately explained its analysis. The court ordered the agency to reconsider. The EPA agreed to update its evaluation. As of the Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2026, the EPA has not yet published a new version.
That means the regulatory finding the Supreme Court relied on for preemption is, in the words of a federal appeals court, inadequately explained. It is still on the books — and still binding for preemption purposes — but it sits on a foundation the court itself found deficient.
A 2019 analysis compared the studies the two agencies relied on and found a structural difference: IARC leaned on peer-reviewed research; the EPA leaned on industry-commissioned, unpublished studies. Regulatory authorities in Canada and Europe largely reached conclusions similar to the EPA’s, but the 2019 analysis found those agencies relied on many of the same industry-influenced studies the EPA used.
At a scientific symposium in Seattle in March 2026, dozens of international scientists concluded that glyphosate can cause cancer, with the strongest evidence pointing to an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A University of Washington professor of environmental and occupational health sciences stated publicly: “IARC got it right, and the evidence since the IARC review that happened in 2015 has only gotten stronger.”
Bayer, for its part, called the ruling “good for science, farmers, and industries that depend on regulatory clarity for innovation.”
This scientific conflict is not background noise. It is the evidentiary engine for the surviving legal theories. If a plaintiff can show that Monsanto influenced, ghostwrote, or suppressed the studies submitted to the EPA — and that the EPA’s determination was built on that manipulated record — that supports a fraudulent concealment theory and a negligence-in-regulatory-submission theory that may evade FIFRA preemption because they target the integrity of the regulatory process, not the content of the label.
Which Roundup Claims Are Preempted — and Which Theories May Survive
This is the section that matters most for anyone with a pending or potential case. The Supreme Court’s ruling is a preemption ruling, and preemption is theory-specific. It kills one theory. It does not kill every theory.
Failure to warn / inadequate labeling — PREEMPTED. This was the dominant theory across Roundup litigation. The claim was that Monsanto knew or should have known of glyphosate’s carcinogenic risk and failed to warn consumers. The Supreme Court held that EPA’s approved label under FIFRA governs, and state tort law cannot impose additional or different warning requirements. This theory is now preempted in state court for Roundup cases. If your pending case is built solely on failure to warn, it faces dismissal.
Design defect — MAY PARTIALLY SURVIVE. A design-defect claim argues that Roundup is unreasonably dangerous by design because glyphosate’s weed-killing function could be achieved with less carcinogenic alternatives. This theory is not premised on labeling requirements — it targets the product’s inherent dangerousness. The defense will argue that EPA registration itself implies the product is safe, but that argument is weaker for a design theory than for a warning theory. The design-defect path is steep but not closed. It requires proving that a safer alternative design existed and that the product’s risks outweighed its utility — a risk-utility analysis that does not directly conflict with the EPA’s labeling determination.
Fraudulent concealment / suppression — MAY SURVIVE. This is the theory with the most daylight after the ruling. The claim is that Monsanto intentionally suppressed adverse scientific findings, ghostwrote or influenced studies submitted to the EPA, and concealed evidence of glyphosate’s carcinogenicity from both the regulator and the public. If framed as independent fraudulent conduct rather than a labeling claim, this theory may evade FIFRA preemption. The key distinction: a fraud claim targets the company’s deception, not the content of the label the EPA approved. The defense will argue that any fraud claim that effectively requires a different warning is still preempted, but the plaintiff’s counter is that the fraud corrupted the regulatory process itself — which is a separate wrong.
Negligence in safety testing and regulatory submission — MAY SURVIVE. This claim targets Monsanto’s conduct in conducting and reporting glyphosate safety studies to the EPA. The argument is that Monsanto breached a duty of reasonable care in the regulatory submission process, causing the EPA’s carcinogenicity determination to rest on incomplete or biased data. This is distinguishable from failure to warn because it does not ask the jury to impose a different label — it asks the jury to find that the company’s conduct in feeding information to the regulator was negligent. The defense will push hard to fold this back into preemption, but the theory has a structural argument for survival.
The generalist misses something here that the specialist catches: the difference between a claim that asks the jury to second-guess the EPA’s label and a claim that asks the jury to punish the company for corrupting the process that produced the label. The first is preempted. The second is not obviously preempted — and the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that the EPA’s own analysis was inadequate gives the second theory a factual foundation the first never had.
Missouri Law and the Preemption Override
The Supreme Court’s FIFRA preemption ruling overrides Missouri state tort law for failure-to-warn claims. But Missouri law still governs the surviving theories, and Missouri has one of the more plaintiff-favorable product liability frameworks in the country.
Statute of limitations. Missouri’s personal injury statute of limitations generally gives you five years from the date you discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, your injury and its connection to the product. In toxic tort cases involving latent diseases like non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the discovery rule is critical — the clock does not start when you were exposed to Roundup. It starts when you learned, or should have learned, that your cancer was connected to glyphosate. For many plaintiffs, that connection was not apparent until after the IARC classification in 2015 or the wave of Roundup litigation that followed. If you have not yet filed, do not assume the clock has run — but do not wait to confirm the deadline with a lawyer, because every day that passes is a day closer to a hard bar.
Comparative fault. Missouri follows a pure comparative fault system. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, but it is never automatically erased. If a jury finds you 30 percent at fault, you still recover 70 percent of your damages. The defense will try to pin fault on you — arguing you used Roundup carelessly, you did not wear protective equipment, you ignored label instructions — but under Missouri law, your own share of fault only reduces, it does not bar, your recovery.
No damage caps. Missouri imposes no statutory caps on compensatory or punitive damages in product liability actions. This is a significant advantage. In states with caps, even a strong verdict can be slashed to a fraction of what the jury intended. In Missouri, the jury’s number stands — subject only to comparative-fault reduction and any post-trial motions.
Punitive damages. Missouri’s punitive damages standard requires a showing of reckless disregard or conscious wrongdoing. The scientific dispute over Monsanto’s regulatory submissions — the allegations that the company suppressed adverse studies, ghostwrote research, and influenced the EPA’s determination — may support a punitive damages finding under this standard. If a surviving fraudulent concealment theory produces evidence that Monsanto knew glyphosate was carcinogenic and actively concealed that information, the punitive damages exposure could be substantial.
Survival and wrongful death. In fatal non-Hodgkin lymphoma cases, Missouri allows both survival actions (for the victim’s pain, suffering, and economic loss between injury and death) and wrongful death actions (for the family’s losses). Both allow recovery of economic and non-economic damages without caps. If you lost a family member to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and they used Roundup, wrongful death claims may be available alongside any surviving product liability theories.
The Defendant: Bayer AG and Monsanto’s Corporate Structure
When you sue over Roundup, you are not suing one company. You are suing a corporate structure designed to manage liability across borders, subsidiaries, and decades.
Bayer AG is the German pharmaceutical and agrochemical conglomerate that acquired Monsanto in 2018. As the parent corporation, Bayer bears ultimate liability for Roundup-related claims and directed the Supreme Court preemption strategy. Bayer is a massive, deep-pocketed defendant — one of the largest pharmaceutical and chemical companies in the world.
Monsanto Company is the original manufacturer and designer of Roundup. Monsanto conducted the safety testing, submitted the regulatory filings to the EPA, and controlled the scientific record on glyphosate carcinogenicity that is central to the preemption analysis. Although Monsanto is now a subsidiary of Bayer, it remains a named defendant in Roundup cases because it was the entity that designed, tested, and marketed the product.
The corporate structure matters for several reasons. First, naming the right entity — or entities — in the complaint is a threshold issue. Plead only Bayer and you may miss the entity that actually made the product. Plead only Monsanto and you may miss the parent with the deeper pockets. Second, Monsanto’s history as an independent company means its internal documents — the safety studies, the regulatory submissions, the internal communications about glyphosate’s cancer risk — are the discovery target. Those documents were produced in the prior multidistrict litigation (MDL-2741, In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, pending in the Northern District of California before Judge Vince Chhabria) and exist in plaintiff counsel databases. New plaintiffs must establish access to those documents through discovery or public records requests.
Downstream retailers — stores like Lowe’s, Home Depot, and garden centers that sell Roundup without cancer warnings — could theoretically face negligent distribution theories. But the preemption logic from the Supreme Court’s ruling likely extends to retail-level failure-to-warn claims as well. The retail path is not promising after the ruling.
The Evidence Clock: What Records Exist and How Fast They Disappear
Every Roundup case — whether built on a surviving theory or a potential future Congressional fix — depends on evidence that is perishable. Some of it is stable. Some of it is disappearing right now.
Medical records documenting your NHL diagnosis, pathology, treatment history, and causation opinion. These are relatively stable. Hospitals and oncology practices retain records long-term. But treating physician availability changes — doctors retire, move, or become unavailable for testimony. The expert review timeline also creates pressure: your causation expert needs to review the full medical record, the exposure history, and the scientific literature before forming an opinion. That takes time. Do not let it take more time than necessary.
Roundup purchase receipts, product containers, and usage logs. These are HIGH PERISHABILITY items. Consumer receipts degrade, get discarded, or become unreadable. Product containers — the actual bottles with the labels, lot numbers, and formulations — get thrown away or recycled. If you still have Roundup containers, photographs of them, or receipts from hardware store or garden center purchases, preserve them immediately. Take photographs of any containers you still have, including the label and any lot numbers. Do not clean, alter, or dispose of the containers.
Monsanto internal corporate documents from prior MDL discovery. These documents — which may show corporate knowledge of glyphosate’s carcinogenicity, suppression of adverse studies, or manipulation of EPA submissions — are central to fraudulent concealment theories that may survive preemption. The documents produced in prior litigation exist in plaintiff counsel databases, but new plaintiffs must establish access through discovery or public records. The moderate perishability rating reflects the fact that the documents exist, but access is not automatic. Your lawyer needs to move to obtain them.
EPA regulatory docket and glyphosate registration filings. The regulatory record — what Monsanto submitted to the EPA, what the EPA reviewed, and what the agency relied on — is a public record. But the EPA is actively revising its glyphosate evaluation, which could alter the preemption landscape if a new determination reaches a different conclusion. Pull the current regulatory docket and monitor it for changes.
Expert causation reports relying on IARC methodology and peer-reviewed literature. Your expert’s methodology must be locked in before preemption challenges to alternative theories are briefed. The expert must distinguish your scientific basis — the IARC analysis, the peer-reviewed studies, the 2019 “compelling link” analysis, the 2023 farmer oxidative stress study, the rat low-dose study — from the EPA’s industry-influenced analysis. This is the work that has the highest urgency, because the defense will move to exclude your expert’s methodology under Daubert, and that motion can kill a case before trial.
What Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Actually Does to a Body
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system — the body’s network of lymph nodes, spleen, thymus, and bone marrow that produces and transports white blood cells called lymphocytes. In non-Hodgkin lymphoma, these lymphocytes mutate, multiply uncontrollably, and crowd out healthy cells. The disease can arise in lymph nodes anywhere in the body and can spread rapidly to other organs.
The treatment is aggressive. The standard first-line chemotherapy regimen for many forms of non-Hodgkin lymphoma is R-CHOP — a combination of rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone, typically delivered in six cycles over several months. Radiation therapy may follow or accompany chemotherapy, depending on the stage and location of the disease. In relapsed or refractory cases, patients may require stem cell transplantation — either autologous (using the patient’s own stem cells) or allogeneic (using donor stem cells) — which involves weeks of hospitalization, a grueling conditioning regimen, and a significant risk of graft-versus-host disease and infection.
The financial cost is staggering. Lifetime medical costs for non-Hodgkin lymphoma frequently exceed $500,000 to $1,000,000 — and that figure does not include lost wages, lost earning capacity, or the human cost of living with a cancer that can relapse years after initial treatment. The $1.25 million compensatory award the Missouri jury returned for the plaintiff in the underlying case reflects the moderate end of Roundup verdicts nationally, where outcomes have ranged from comparable compensatory figures to multi-million-dollar verdicts including punitive damages in cases with stronger evidence of corporate misconduct.
The defense will exploit the fact that non-Hodgkin lymphoma has multiple causes — it can arise without any known exposure to glyphosate, and it is associated with other risk factors including age, immune system suppression, and certain infections. The defense will argue that your cancer was idiopathic — meaning it arose spontaneously, without a identifiable cause — and that you cannot prove glyphosate caused it specifically. The counter is the scientific literature: the 2019 analysis finding a “compelling link,” the IARC classification, the 2023 farmer study showing oxidative stress, and the dose-response evidence showing that people who used Roundup extensively over many years have a measurably higher risk of developing the disease.
The family watching this happen sees it in stages. First the lump — a swollen lymph node, often in the neck, armpit, or groin. Then the biopsy. Then the oncology appointment where the word “lymphoma” lands on the table. Then the treatment calendar — months of chemotherapy, weeks of radiation, the constant blood tests, the fatigue, the nausea, the hair loss, the infections. Then the remission — or the relapse. And underneath all of it, the question: was it the weed killer?
What a Roundup Case Is Worth After the Ruling
The Supreme Court’s preemption ruling has fundamentally changed the damages landscape. We need to be honest about what that means.
The failure-to-warn theory — the theory that produced the $1.25 million Durnell verdict and larger verdicts in other cases — is now preempted. That was the dominant theory driving verdicts and settlements. With it gone, the case value range has shifted dramatically.
At the low end, a Roundup case that cannot plead a surviving theory may be worth zero in state court. The preemption ruling is a powerful motion-to-dismiss weapon for the defense, and cases built solely on failure to warn face dismissal.
At the high end, if a fraudulent concealment or design defect theory survives preemption challenges and reaches trial or settlement, the value could reach approximately $1.5 million or more — particularly in Missouri, where there are no damage caps and where punitive damages are available upon a showing of reckless disregard or conscious wrongdoing. Bayer’s prior settlement program for Roundup cases demonstrates willingness to resolve claims at moderate values, but the post-ruling leverage has shifted toward the defense.
The key variable is which theories survive. A case with strong evidence of corporate misconduct — internal documents showing Monsanto knew glyphosate was carcinogenic and suppressed that information — carries more value than a case built on failure to warn alone, because the fraud theory supports punitive damages and because the fraud theory has a better chance of surviving preemption.
We do not guarantee any result. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can tell you honestly is that the preemption ruling has made these cases harder — but not impossible — and that the path forward runs through theories that require more evidence, more expert work, and more legal sophistication than the failure-to-warn claims that drove the first wave of Roundup litigation.
The Defense Playbook After Preemption
Bayer’s legal strategy after the Supreme Court ruling is predictable. Here are the plays you should expect, and the counter to each.
Play 1: The preemption motion to dismiss. Bayer will file a motion to dismiss every pending and new Roundup case, arguing that the Supreme Court’s ruling preempts all state-law claims related to Roundup’s cancer risk. The counter is to re-plead around non-preempted theories — design defect, fraudulent concealment, negligence in regulatory submission — and to argue that these theories do not require a different or additional warning on the label. The motion-to-dismiss stage is where the surviving-theories analysis matters most. If your lawyer pleads only failure to warn, the case is dismissed. If your lawyer pleads fraud and design defect alongside it, the case may survive.
Play 2: The “EPA said it’s safe” defense. Bayer will lean on the EPA’s 2020 determination that glyphosate is “not likely” carcinogenic. The counter is twofold: first, the Ninth Circuit already ruled the EPA’s analysis was inadequately explained, and the agency has not yet corrected it. Second, for fraud-based theories, the argument is that the EPA’s determination was built on a corrupted record — industry-influenced, unpublished studies — and that the company is responsible for the corruption, not the regulator.
Play 3: The idiopathic-cause attack. Bayer will argue that non-Hodgkin lymphoma has many causes and that the plaintiff cannot prove glyphosate caused their specific cancer. The counter is the peer-reviewed scientific literature — the IARC classification, the 2019 “compelling link” analysis, the 2023 farmer study — combined with a detailed exposure history showing the duration, frequency, and intensity of the plaintiff’s Roundup use. Your expert must build a specific-causation opinion that ties your individual exposure to your individual diagnosis.
Play 4: The settlement-pressure squeeze. With preemption shifting leverage toward the defense, Bayer may offer lower settlements than it did before the ruling, betting that plaintiffs will accept a reduced amount rather than risk dismissal. The counter is to build the strongest possible fraud-based theory — the one that carries punitive damages exposure — so that the settlement math accounts for the risk Bayer faces if a fraud claim survives and reaches a jury.
Play 5: The Daubert motion to exclude your expert. Bayer will move to exclude your causation expert’s testimony, arguing that the methodology is unreliable. This is the single most dangerous motion in any toxic tort case — if your expert is excluded, you cannot prove causation, and the case is over. The counter is to ensure your expert’s methodology is grounded in the peer-reviewed literature — the IARC analysis, the published studies — and not merely on the EPA’s determination, which has already been found deficient by a federal appeals court.
Lupe Peña knows these plays from the inside. Before he joined our firm, he worked at a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He knows how claim valuation software works, how IME doctors are selected, and how surveillance and social-media monitoring are deployed. He uses that knowledge for our clients now.
How a Surviving Roundup Case Is Built
Here is how a Roundup case that survives preemption is actually built — week by week, document by document.
In week one, the preservation letter goes out. It demands that Bayer and Monsanto preserve all relevant documents — the internal safety studies, the regulatory submissions, the internal communications about glyphosate’s cancer risk, the EPA correspondence, the marketing materials, the product testing data. It demands that the plaintiff’s medical records be preserved. It demands that any physical evidence — Roundup containers, receipts, usage logs — be photographed and secured. The preservation letter is what stops the clock on evidence destruction.
In the following weeks, the medical records are pulled and organized — the pathology report confirming non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the treatment records, the chemotherapy regimen, the imaging, the blood work. An oncologist or hematologist is identified as a treating-physician witness. A toxicologist or epidemiologist is retained as a causation expert. The expert reviews the medical record, the exposure history, and the scientific literature — the IARC monograph, the peer-reviewed studies, the 2019 analysis, the 2023 farmer study — and forms a specific-causation opinion linking the plaintiff’s Roundup exposure to their NHL diagnosis.
Then the complaint is filed — re-pleaded around the surviving theories. Design defect. Fraudulent concealment. Negligence in regulatory submission. Each theory is pleaded separately, with facts specific to the plaintiff’s exposure and to Monsanto’s conduct. The failure-to-warn claim may still be pleaded — some courts may allow it to proceed alongside the non-preempted claims, preserving it for appeal — but the primary reliance is on the theories that have a structural argument for survival.
Discovery follows. Written interrogatories. Document requests targeting the Monsanto internal documents produced in the prior MDL. Depositions of Monsanto’s corporate representatives — the scientists who ran the safety studies, the regulatory affairs staff who submitted the data to the EPA, the executives who decided whether to warn. The depositions are where the fraud theory lives or dies. If a corporate representative admits under oath that the company knew glyphosate was associated with cancer risk and chose not to disclose it — or if internal documents show the company ghostwrote studies or suppressed adverse findings — that testimony becomes the foundation for punitive damages.
Then the Daubert motions — the defense moves to exclude the plaintiff’s causation expert; the plaintiff moves to exclude the defense’s. The Daubert ruling can decide the case. If the plaintiff’s expert survives and the defense’s expert is limited, the case moves toward trial or settlement with the plaintiff in a stronger position. If the plaintiff’s expert is excluded, the case is over.
Then the trial — if the case does not settle. In Missouri, the jury is twelve people from the community. The voir dire probes their attitudes toward regulatory deference versus corporate accountability — whether they trust EPA determinations that were built on industry-influenced studies, and whether they believe a company that manipulates the regulatory process should be held responsible for the consequences.
Your First 72 Hours: What to Do Right Now
If you used Roundup and were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma — or if you have a pending Roundup case — here is what the first 72 hours should look like.
Hour 1 through 24: Preserve the physical evidence. If you still have Roundup containers — bottles, sprayers, concentrate jugs — do not throw them away. Photograph them from every angle, including the labels, the lot numbers, and the formulation information. Store them in a safe place. Gather any purchase receipts, credit card statements, or store records that show when and how much Roundup you bought. Write down your usage history — how many years you used it, how often, how much each time, whether you sprayed it yourself or someone else did, whether you wore protective equipment. This usage history is the foundation of your exposure claim, and memory fades.
Hour 24 through 48: Organize your medical records. Collect your pathology report, your treatment records, your chemotherapy regimen, your imaging, your blood work, your oncologist’s notes. If you have not yet been diagnosed but have symptoms — swollen lymph nodes, unexplained fatigue, night sweats, unexplained weight loss — see a doctor immediately. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a serious disease, and your health comes first. The legal case can wait. Your treatment cannot.
Hour 48 through 72: Call a lawyer. If you have a pending case, contact your current attorney immediately and ask how the Supreme Court ruling affects your specific claims. Ask whether your complaint includes non-preempted theories — design defect, fraudulent concealment, negligence in regulatory submission. If it does not, ask whether re-pleading is possible. If you have not yet filed, do not wait. The statute of limitations is running, and every day that passes is a day closer to a hard deadline. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case.
What not to do. Do not sign anything from Bayer, Monsanto, or any insurance company without speaking to a lawyer first. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not post about your case on social media. Do not assume your case is dead — the preemption ruling is a major setback, but it is not a blanket immunity, and the path forward requires a lawyer who understands the surviving theories.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still sue Monsanto for Roundup causing my non-Hodgkin lymphoma?
The Supreme Court’s June 2026 ruling preempted the primary theory — failure to warn — that drove most Roundup cancer lawsuits. But it did not preempt every theory. Claims based on fraudulent concealment, design defect, and negligence in the regulatory submission process may survive. Whether you can still sue depends on the facts of your exposure, the strength of your causation evidence, and whether your lawyer can plead a non-preempted theory. Call a lawyer immediately to evaluate your specific situation.
What happened to the Missouri plaintiff’s $1.25 million verdict?
The Missouri jury awarded $1.25 million in compensatory damages in 2023. The Supreme Court took up the case on appeal at Bayer’s petition and ruled that the failure-to-warn theory behind the verdict is preempted by federal law. What happens to the verdict specifically depends on the procedural posture of the remand — whether it is vacated, reduced, or subject to further proceedings on non-preempted theories. That is being litigated.
I already have a Roundup lawsuit pending. What should I do?
Contact your attorney immediately. Ask specifically whether your complaint includes non-preempted theories — design defect, fraudulent concealment, negligence in regulatory submission. If your case is built solely on failure to warn, it faces a motion to dismiss. Your attorney should be evaluating whether re-pleading around surviving theories is possible and whether the facts of your case support those theories. Do not assume your attorney has already done this — ask directly.
Does the Supreme Court ruling mean glyphosate is safe?
No. The Supreme Court did not rule on the science. It ruled on the law — specifically, whether federal pesticide law preempts state tort claims. The scientific conflict between IARC (which classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” based on peer-reviewed research) and the EPA (which found it “not likely” carcinogenic based partly on industry-commissioned studies) remains unresolved. A federal appeals court has already ruled the EPA’s analysis was inadequately explained, and the agency has not yet published a corrected version.
How long do I have to file a Roundup lawsuit in Missouri?
Missouri’s personal injury statute of limitations generally gives you five years from the date you discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, your injury and its connection to the product. In toxic tort cases involving latent diseases like non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the clock typically starts when you learned your cancer might be connected to glyphosate exposure — not when you were exposed. But every case is different, and the deadline can be earlier than you think. Confirm the deadline with a lawyer immediately. Do not wait.
What if my family member died from non-Hodgkin lymphoma after using Roundup?
Missouri allows both survival actions (for the victim’s pain, suffering, and economic loss between injury and death) and wrongful death actions (for the family’s losses). Both allow recovery of economic and non-economic damages without caps. The preemption ruling affects the failure-to-warn theory in death cases just as it does in injury cases, but the surviving theories — fraudulent concealment, design defect — may also apply. If the death occurred within the statute of limitations period, contact a lawyer immediately.
Is Congress going to fix this?
A member of Congress has announced intent to introduce legislation that would strip pesticide companies of the liability protections the Supreme Court’s ruling relies on. Congressional action could reopen the litigation landscape for state-court failure-to-warn claims. But legislation is speculative — it has not been passed, and its prospects are uncertain. Do not rely on Congressional action as the basis for your case. Build your case on the theories that survive today, and monitor the legislative track as a potential future advantage.
What is my Roundup case worth now?
The preemption ruling has dramatically compressed the value of Roundup cases. The failure-to-warn theory that produced the $1.25 million verdict and larger awards is now preempted. Cases that cannot plead a surviving theory may be worth zero in state court. Cases with strong fraudulent concealment or design defect theories — supported by evidence of corporate misconduct — may carry value up to approximately $1.5 million or more, particularly in Missouri where there are no damage caps and punitive damages are available. Every case is different. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Should I take the settlement offer I already received?
If you have received a settlement offer from Bayer or Monsanto — before or after the Supreme Court ruling — do not accept it without speaking to a lawyer. The preemption ruling has shifted settlement leverage toward the defense, and post-ruling offers may be lower than pre-ruling offers. But a low offer is not necessarily the final word. If your case has strong fraud-based evidence, the punitive damages exposure may justify rejecting a low offer. A lawyer who understands the surviving theories can evaluate whether the offer is fair or whether you should fight.
Does it matter that I used Roundup for many years?
Yes — duration, frequency, and intensity of exposure are central to your specific-causation claim. The scientific literature on glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma shows a dose-response relationship: people who used Roundup extensively over many years have a measurably higher risk than occasional users. The Missouri plaintiff in the underlying case alleged two decades of Roundup use. Document your usage history as thoroughly as you can — how many years, how often, how much, what kind of application (spraying, wiping, concentrate mixing), and whether you wore protective equipment.
Why Attorney911
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are Legal Emergency Lawyers. We handle toxic tort and product liability cases, and we understand what the Supreme Court’s Roundup ruling means for people in Missouri who used this product and got cancer.
Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — he knows how to find the story the documents tell, and he knows how to tell it to a jury. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He does not like losing.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm before he came to our side of the table. He knows how claims are valued — how the software works, how reserves are set, how adjusters decide what to pay and what to deny. He knows the IME doctors the defense uses, the surveillance tactics, the social-media monitoring. He uses that inside knowledge for our clients now. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter.
We work on contingency. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911. We have 24/7 live staff, not an answering service. Hablamos Español.
We are not your counsel on the Roundup case described in the news. We have taken no action on that case. But if you used Roundup and developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma — if you have a pending case that needs re-pleading, or if you have not yet filed and the clock is running — we are a resource. We can evaluate your case, explain which theories may survive preemption, and help you understand what your options are.
The Supreme Court closed a door. It did not close every door. The science linking glyphosate to non-Hodgkin lymphoma has only gotten stronger since IARC’s 2015 classification. The EPA’s own analysis was found deficient by a federal court. The evidence of corporate conduct — what Monsanto knew, when it knew it, and what it told the regulator — is the battlefield now. If you are ready to fight, call us.