Missouri Roundup Lawsuit After the Supreme Court — What the Ruling Closes, What It Leaves Open, and What You Should Do Right Now
You used Roundup for years. You were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. You may have already been part of the litigation, or you were considering calling a lawyer, or you were waiting to see how the Supreme Court case would come out before deciding what to do. Now the news says the Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs — seven to two — and you are sitting in your kitchen wondering whether your case just died.
We are going to tell you the truth about what this ruling means, what it does not mean, and whether any path forward still exists. We will not sugarcoat it. The ruling is a serious blow — it closed the main door that more than a decade of Roundup litigation walked through. But it did not close every door, it did not declare Roundup safe, and it did not say glyphosate does not cause cancer. What the Supreme Court decided was a question of federal law — whether the EPA’s decision not to require a cancer warning on the label prevents state courts from imposing one through a lawsuit. The Court said yes. That is a preemption ruling, not a scientific ruling, and the difference matters more than anything else on this page.
If you have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and you have a history of significant Roundup exposure, you need an honest evaluation of whether your specific facts fit into one of the legal theories that may still survive. That evaluation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911, any hour, any day. We serve your family fully in Spanish. Hablamos Español.
What the Supreme Court Actually Ruled
The Supreme Court ruled seven to two in favor of Monsanto in a case that began in Missouri, where a man who had used Roundup for roughly twenty years alleged that glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup — caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and that the product should have carried a cancer warning label. He had won a million-dollar award from a lower court. The Supreme Court overturned that award.
Justice Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, explained the ruling 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 re-approved on multiple occasions — that is, the label without a cancer warning.”
“Durnell’s state tort claim, by contrast, would require Monsanto to add a cancer warning to its labels.”
The Court held that because the Environmental Protection Agency approved Roundup’s label without a cancer warning, and because federal pesticide law prohibits states from imposing labeling requirements that differ from the EPA-approved label, state tort claims seeking a cancer warning are federally preempted. In plain English: the federal government said no cancer warning was needed, and that determination overrides any state law that would require one through a lawsuit.
This is the engine that drove the vast majority of Roundup litigation — the theory that Monsanto owed consumers a duty to warn about glyphosate’s potential carcinogenicity and failed to fulfill it. That theory is now foreclosed. A state court can no longer tell a jury that Monsanto should have put a cancer warning on Roundup’s label, because federal law — specifically, the EPA’s labeling decision under FIFRA — controls what the label must say.
But here is what the ruling did not do. It did not rule on whether glyphosate actually causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It did not rule on whether Monsanto knew about cancer risks and concealed them. It did not rule on whether Roundup was defectively designed. It did not rule on whether Monsanto conducted negligent testing. It did not address any theory of liability other than failure-to-warn. The opinion is about labels and federal preemption — not about science, not about corporate knowledge, and not about whether the product itself is dangerous.
That distinction is the entire landscape of what comes next.
The Federal Law That Won: FIFRA and EPA Preemption
The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act — known as FIFRA — is the federal statute that governs the registration, labeling, and sale of pesticides in the United States. Under FIFRA, no pesticide can be sold legally unless the EPA reviews it and approves its label. The EPA’s label approval is not a passive process — the agency evaluates the product’s ingredients, its intended uses, and its potential risks, and then decides what warnings, precautions, and instructions the label must carry.
FIFRA also contains an express preemption provision. That provision prohibits states from imposing labeling or packaging requirements that are “in addition to or different from” those required under FIFRA. This is the provision the Supreme Court relied on. The logic is straightforward: if the EPA — the federal agency charged with evaluating pesticide safety — reviewed Roundup and decided its label did not need a cancer warning, then a state court cannot require Monsanto to add one. Doing so would impose a labeling requirement “different from” the one the EPA approved, which FIFRA expressly forbids.
The EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate-based herbicides are “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans” and that no cancer warning label is required. The EPA has re-approved this position on multiple occasions over the years, each time reinforcing the federal determination that the label Monsanto uses — without a cancer warning — is the label federal law requires.
This is where the conflict that drove the litigation lives. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer — which is part of the World Health Organization — classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen” (Group 2A). IARC based this classification on what it called “limited” evidence of cancer in humans from real-world exposures and “sufficient” evidence of cancer in experimental animals. This was the scientific foundation that plaintiffs built their cases on — if the world’s leading cancer authority says glyphosate is probably carcinogenic, Monsanto should have warned consumers.
The Supreme Court resolved this conflict in favor of federal regulatory primacy. The EPA’s labeling determination controls over state tort law, even when an international scientific body reaches a different conclusion about carcinogenicity. The Court did not say the EPA is right and IARC is wrong. It said the EPA’s labeling decision is the one that federal law makes binding on the states.
For the reader sitting at home with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, this may feel like the government just told you the product that made you sick is officially safe. That is not what happened. The EPA made a labeling determination under a regulatory framework. A labeling determination is not a scientific finding that a chemical cannot cause cancer — it is an administrative decision about what a product’s label must say. The Supreme Court enforced that administrative decision against conflicting state requirements. The science — the question of whether glyphosate in fact causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in humans exposed at real-world levels — remains genuinely contested, with the world’s foremost cancer research agency on one side and the U.S. environmental regulator on the other.
The Door That Closed: Failure-to-Warn Is Now Foreclosed
We need to be direct about this because anything less would be dishonest, and a person with cancer deserves honesty, not false hope dressed up as encouragement.
The failure-to-warn theory — the claim that Monsanto owed a duty to warn consumers about glyphosate’s potential carcinogenicity and breached that duty by not putting a cancer warning on the label — is the theory that drove the majority of Roundup litigation for more than a decade. It produced verdicts. It produced settlements. Bayer, Monsanto’s parent company, previously agreed to a $7.25 billion class-action settlement framework to resolve future Roundup claims — a figure that tells you the scale of the exposure the company faced under the failure-to-warn theory.
That theory is now preempted. A state court cannot tell a jury that Monsanto should have warned about cancer on the label, because the EPA decided the label does not need that warning, and FIFRA makes the EPA’s decision controlling. This is not a close call or a arguable point after the Supreme Court’s seven-to-two ruling — it is settled. Cases resting solely on failure-to-warn now have near-zero recovery potential.
If a lawyer tells you your Roundup failure-to-warn case is unaffected by this ruling, that lawyer is not being straight with you. The ruling is national. It binds every federal court and every state court. Missouri’s historically plaintiff-friendly civil justice system — its pure comparative fault rule, its uncapped damages, its longer-than-average statute of limitations — cannot override a federal preemption determination. No state’s law can.
The question that matters now is not whether failure-to-warn survived. It did not. The question is whether other theories of liability — theories the Supreme Court did not address — can carry a case forward.
The Doors That May Still Be Open: Alternative Theories of Liability
The Supreme Court’s ruling addressed one specific theory: failure-to-warn through state tort law requiring a cancer warning on the label. The opinion did not address, and does not automatically foreclose, other theories of product liability that do not depend on what the label says. We need to be honest about each of these — they are real, but they face serious obstacles, and not every Roundup plaintiff will have a viable case under them.
Design defect. A design-defect claim argues that Roundup was unreasonably dangerous by design — that glyphosate is carcinogenic at real-world exposure levels and that the product should not have been sold in its current formulation, regardless of what the label says. This theory does not depend on labeling requirements, so it is not squarely within the FIFRA labeling-preemption holding. It could potentially survive.
But it faces a significant challenge: general causation. To win a design-defect case, a plaintiff must prove that glyphosate actually causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The defense will weaponize the EPA’s determination that glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans” against the plaintiff’s causation experts. They will argue that if the federal agency charged with evaluating pesticide safety concluded glyphosate is not carcinogenic, the plaintiff cannot meet the burden of proving it is. The conflicting IARC classification will be the plaintiff’s primary counter — but the defense will argue that IARC’s “limited” evidence in humans is not enough, and that the EPA’s more recent and more specific review should carry more weight in an American courtroom. This is now the central scientific battleground in any surviving Roundup case, and it is a harder fight than failure-to-warn ever was.
Negligent product testing and research. If discovery reveals that Monsanto conducted or suppressed internal studies showing carcinogenic effects that it did not submit to or concealed from the EPA during the registration process, a negligent-testing theory could potentially proceed. The logic would be that Monsanto’s own testing was negligently performed or negligently communicated to the federal regulator, and that this negligence — not the label itself — caused the harm. This theory lives or dies on what the internal corporate documents show. Prior Roundup litigation has already produced a significant public record of internal Monsanto documents, and additional internal communications may still exist, though corporate document-retention policies can destroy them over time.
Fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation. If Monsanto made specific safety representations beyond the label itself — in marketing materials, in advertising, in direct communications to consumers or regulators — that it knew to be false, a fraud-based theory might not fall squarely within the labeling-preemption holding. The argument would be that Monsanto’s fraud is a separate wrong from the absence of a warning on the label. This theory faces significant obstacles under the same federal-registration logic — the defense will argue that any safety representation Monsanto made was consistent with the EPA-approved label and therefore cannot be treated as fraudulent — but it is not automatically foreclosed by the ruling.
The honest assessment: these alternative theories are legally available but practically harder. They require different evidence, different expert testimony, and different legal arguments than failure-to-warn did. Not every plaintiff who would have had a viable failure-to-warn case will have a viable design-defect or negligent-testing case. The strength of any surviving claim depends heavily on the specific facts — the duration and intensity of exposure, the strength of the medical timeline, the quality of the causation evidence, and what the internal corporate documents show about what Monsanto knew.
If you want to know whether your specific facts support a surviving theory, that is what a free consultation is for. We will tell you honestly whether we see a viable path or whether the ruling has effectively closed your case. Not every case will survive this evaluation. We will not pretend otherwise.
Who You Are Really Up Against: Monsanto and Bayer
Monsanto Company designed, manufactured, registered, and marketed Roundup for decades. In 2018, Bayer AG — the German multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences giant — acquired Monsanto for $63 billion. Today Monsanto operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bayer. The caption defendant in Roundup litigation remains “Monsanto Company,” but the financial responsibility and the strategic decisions sit with Bayer.
Bayer is one of the largest pharmaceutical and chemical companies in the world, with global revenue supporting collectibility on any judgment or settlement. Bayer has publicly acknowledged that the Roundup litigation has carried “enormous costs” and has “impacted public trust.” Bayer’s CEO, Bill Anderson, said of the Supreme Court’s ruling:
“The decision brings overdue justice on an issue that should have been clarified much earlier. It’s time to put it behind us.”
Read that statement carefully. “Put it behind us” is the strategy. Bayer intends to use this ruling to try to close the door on all Roundup litigation, not just the failure-to-warn cases. They will argue that the Supreme Court’s preemption logic extends to every theory that depends on glyphosate’s carcinogenicity, not just the label. Whether courts accept that argument — whether the ruling’s reach is as broad as Bayer hopes — is one of the open questions that will be litigated case by case in lower courts.
The deep-pocket reality is significant. If a surviving theory is established and liability is proven, Bayer’s financial resources support recovery. This is not a judgment-proof defendant. The challenge is not collectibility — it is liability. The preemption ruling made proving liability harder, not collection.
For context on the scale of what Bayer has faced: the company previously agreed to a $7.25 billion class-action settlement framework to address future Roundup claims. That settlement was structured under the failure-to-warn theory that the Supreme Court has now foreclosed. The current status and future viability of that settlement framework in light of the ruling is itself an open question — and one that anyone considering a claim needs a lawyer to evaluate, not a webpage to answer.
The Science War: EPA vs IARC
The regulatory conflict between the EPA and IARC is now the central narrative battleground in any surviving Roundup case. Here is what each side has said:
The EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” The agency’s position is that the scientific evidence does not support a cancer classification, and it has approved and re-approved Roundup’s label without a cancer warning on multiple occasions.
IARC — the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is the World Health Organization’s specialized cancer agency — classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen” (Group 2A) in 2015. IARC’s classification was based on “limited” evidence of cancer in humans from real-world exposures and “sufficient” evidence of cancer in experimental animals. IARC is widely considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on cancer causation.
Bayer has pointed to other regulators — including the European Food Safety Authority and various health authorities in Asia and Latin America — that have agreed with the EPA’s assessment. Bayer called the Supreme Court’s ruling an acknowledgment of “the settled consensus of the world’s foremost scientific experts.”
The plaintiff’s side will point to IARC’s classification, to studies showing liver and kidney damage in rats exposed to glyphosate, to research showing alterations in the gut microbiomes of honey bees, and to the fact that by 2021, glyphosate had been detected in human fluids — despite earlier scientific assumptions that it was not absorbed by the body in significant amounts.
This conflict is not just academic. In a surviving Roundup case, it is the evidentiary battlefield. The defense will put up experts who testify that the EPA is right and IARC is an outlier. The plaintiff will put up experts who testify that IARC is right and the EPA’s review was flawed or incomplete. The jury will be asked to decide which scientific authority to believe.
This is why, in any surviving case, jury selection — voir dire — becomes critical. Jurors’ trust in federal regulatory agencies versus international scientific bodies will shape how they evaluate the evidence. A juror who instinctively trusts the EPA will be harder for a plaintiff. A juror who is skeptical of industry-influenced regulatory processes may be more receptive. Identifying and educating jurors on this conflict is one of the things that separates a lawyer who understands the post-ruling landscape from one who does not.
The Disease: Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system — specifically of the lymphocytes, which are white blood cells that help the body fight infection. It is not a single disease but a group of related cancers that arise in the lymph nodes, spleen, bone marrow, and other lymphoid tissues. There are many subtypes, and the prognosis and treatment vary depending on the specific type, the stage at diagnosis, and the patient’s overall health.
Treatment regimens for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma can be aggressive and prolonged. They may include:
- R-CHOP chemotherapy — a combination regimen (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone) that is the standard first-line treatment for many common subtypes. Multiple cycles over several months, each carrying its own side-effect burden.
- Radiation therapy — sometimes used alone for early-stage disease or in combination with chemotherapy for more advanced cases.
- Monoclonal antibody therapy — targeted treatments like rituximab that seek out specific proteins on lymphoma cells.
- Stem cell transplantation — in relapsed or refractory cases, high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous (the patient’s own) or allogeneic (donor) stem cell rescue. This is a grueling process with significant risks and a long recovery.
- Ongoing monitoring — even after successful treatment, NHL patients face a risk of recurrence that requires regular surveillance for years or for life.
The medical expenses are substantial. The lost earning capacity — especially for patients who cannot work during treatment or whose long-term energy and cognitive function are affected — can be enormous. The pain, suffering, fear of recurrence, and reduced life expectancy are real and significant, and in Missouri, non-economic damages are uncapped.
If the NHL patient has died, the estate may pursue survival damages for the victim’s conscious pain and suffering and medical expenses, and the family may pursue wrongful-death damages. The preemption ruling constrains the liability theories available in these cases just as it does in survival cases — but the damages framework remains intact for any theory that does survive. You can learn more about wrongful-death claims and how they work on our wrongful death claim lawyer page.
The Evidence You Need to Preserve — and How Fast It Can Disappear
In any toxic-tort case, evidence has an expiration date. Some of that evidence is in your possession. Some is in the defendant’s files. Some sits with federal agencies. All of it can degrade, disappear, or become harder to obtain over time. Here is what matters and what is at risk:
Your medical records. Your NHL diagnosis, pathology reports, treatment records, response to treatment, relapse history if any, and prognosis documentation. These establish the injury and its severity. Different medical providers have different retention periods — some keep records for decades, others may purge them after a shorter period. If you have been treated at multiple facilities, all of those records need to be assembled. Active treatment records should be obtained immediately.
Your Roundup purchase and usage history. How long did you use Roundup? How frequently? In what quantities? For what purposes — residential lawn care, commercial agriculture, professional landscaping? This establishes specific causation — the duration, frequency, and intensity of your glyphosate exposure. Personal purchase records, receipts, and witness statements degrade over time as memories fade and physical documents are lost. Write down everything you can remember now — brands, sizes, where you bought it, how often, for how many years.
Internal Monsanto/Bayer corporate documents. These are the documents that could support surviving negligent-testing or fraudulent-concealment theories — internal studies on glyphosate carcinogenicity, internal scientific disagreements, communications about EPA submissions, and marketing materials making safety claims. A significant body of these documents has already been produced in prior Roundup litigation and is part of the public court record. Additional internal communications may remain subject to corporate document-retention policies, which can authorize destruction on a defined schedule. The preservation letter that freezes those documents goes out the day you call a lawyer — not after months of deliberation.
EPA registration correspondence. The communications between Monsanto and the EPA during the registration process — what information Monsanto provided, what it did not provide, and whether any material omissions or misrepresentations occurred. Federal agency records are retained under federal records schedules, but FOIA-requestable documents require prompt requests to avoid processing backlogs that can stretch for months or years.
IARC monograph and EPA glyphosate registration reviews. These published government and international scientific documents provide the framework for general-causation expert testimony. They are permanently available, but should be archived because future regulatory revisions could change the official positions.
The preservation clock is real. We send the letter that freezes corporate documents, puts the defendant on notice that evidence must not be destroyed, and creates a spoliation record that can be used in court if evidence later turns up missing. That letter goes out in days, not months — because the documents that could support a surviving theory are the same documents a company with a “put it behind us” strategy may not be motivated to preserve.
What a Case May Be Worth After the Ruling
We need to talk about money honestly, because false expectations hurt people who are already hurting.
Before the ruling, the failure-to-warn theory was the engine of Roundup litigation value. The million-dollar award in the Missouri case that the Supreme Court overturned represents the approximate pre-ruling floor for a successful single-plaintiff non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma verdict. Pre-ruling verdicts and settlements varied widely — some were larger, some involved multiple plaintiffs, some were reduced on appeal. The record was genuinely mixed. Bayer’s $7.25 billion settlement framework reflects the scale of the aggregate exposure the company faced.
After the ruling, cases resting solely on failure-to-warn have near-zero recovery potential. That theory is preempted. If a lawyer tells you otherwise, that lawyer is either uninformed or not being honest with you.
If alternative theories survive — if design defect, negligent testing, or fraudulent concealment can be established and general and specific causation can be proven — values could approach pre-ruling levels. Missouri’s uncapped damages environment for both compensatory and punitive damages, its pure comparative fault system, and Bayer’s deep-pocket collectibility all support substantial recovery if liability is established. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a serious cancer with substantial medical costs, significant pain and suffering, and potentially reduced life expectancy. The economic damages alone — past and future medical, lost wages, lost earning capacity — can run into the hundreds of thousands to millions depending on treatment intensity and disability.
But that “if” is enormous. The alternative theories face serious legal and scientific obstacles. The defense will move to dismiss on preemption grounds, arguing that the ruling’s logic extends beyond failure-to-warn. The defense will challenge general causation experts under the applicable evidentiary standard, using the EPA’s determination as a weapon. The defense will argue that IARC’s classification is the minority view and insufficient to prove causation.
The honest range: a case that cannot get past preemption or cannot prove causation is worth zero. A case that clears both hurdles and establishes liability on a surviving theory could be worth $1 million to $5 million or more, depending on the severity of the NHL, the treatment required, the economic losses, and whether punitive damages are available for conduct that rises to that level. The overturned million-dollar award in the Missouri case is a reasonable reference point for what a single-plaintiff NHL case was worth pre-ruling on the failure-to-warn theory. What the same case is worth on a surviving theory is an open question that will be answered case by case.
For a deeper look at how case value is actually calculated — how life-care planners build the medical cost stream, how forensic economists project lost earning capacity, how non-economic damages are valued — watch Ralph Manginello’s breakdown on how much a personal injury case is worth.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Defense Playbook: What Monsanto and Bayer Will Do With This Ruling
Bayer’s strategy after this ruling is clear from the CEO’s own words — “put it behind us.” Here are the specific plays the defense will run and how each one must be countered:
Play 1: “The Supreme Court already decided this.” Bayer will argue that the ruling forecloses not just failure-to-warn but every Roundup claim, because every claim depends on glyphosate being carcinogenic and the EPA has determined it is not. The counter: the ruling addressed labeling preemption, not general causation. The EPA’s labeling determination is not a scientific finding that glyphosate cannot cause cancer — it is an administrative decision about what the label must say. Whether the ruling’s preemption logic extends to non-labeling theories is an open question that lower courts will decide case by case.
Play 2: “The EPA said it is safe.” Bayer will lean on the EPA’s “not likely to be carcinogenic” determination as both a legal shield and a scientific defense. The counter: IARC — the World Health Organization’s cancer agency — reached the opposite conclusion, classifying glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. The scientific conflict is real, and a jury is entitled to hear both sides and decide which scientific authority is more credible. The EPA’s determination does not automatically win the scientific argument in a courtroom — it wins the labeling argument, which is a different thing.
Play 3: “IARC is the outlier.” Bayer will point to the European Food Safety Authority and regulators in Asia and Latin America who agree with the EPA. The counter: IARC is not a fringe organization — it is the world’s foremost specialized cancer research agency, and its classification process is globally respected. The fact that regulatory bodies with different mandates and different methodological frameworks reached different conclusions does not make IARC wrong. It makes the science contested, which is precisely why a jury should hear the evidence rather than having the case thrown out on preemption grounds.
Play 4: Daubert challenges to causation experts. Bayer will move to exclude plaintiff expert witnesses who testify that glyphosate causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, arguing that their opinions are unreliable given the EPA’s contrary determination. The counter: the plaintiff’s experts must be carefully vetted for the applicable expert-admissibility standard in the jurisdiction. The conflicting regulatory determinations will be weaponized by the defense — the plaintiff’s experts must be prepared to explain why IARC’s classification is scientifically sound and why the EPA’s determination does not resolve the causation question. This is one of the most critical fights in any surviving case.
Play 5: “The settlement framework handles this.” Bayer may point to the $7.25 billion class-action settlement as the appropriate avenue for Roundup claims. The counter: the current status and viability of that settlement framework in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling is itself an open question. A plaintiff is entitled to independent legal counsel to evaluate whether the settlement provides fair compensation or whether a surviving tort claim offers a better path.
How a Surviving Case Is Built
Here is how a post-ruling Roundup case that has a realistic chance of survival is actually constructed — not in the abstract, but step by step.
Week one: the preservation letter. The day you call, a letter goes to Monsanto/Bayer ordering them to freeze all internal documents relating to glyphosate carcinogenicity studies, EPA registration submissions, internal scientific communications, and marketing materials. This letter creates a legal obligation to preserve evidence. If documents later turn up missing, the spoliation record is the lever that lets a jury be told the company destroyed evidence it was required to keep.
Weeks two through four: the evidence assembly. Your medical records are pulled from every treating provider — the pathology report that confirmed the NHL diagnosis, the treatment records showing the chemotherapy regimen, the response evaluation, the surveillance plan. Your Roundup usage history is documented — every brand, every purchase, every season of use, every acre or yard treated. Witness statements from family members or co-workers who can corroborate your exposure history are taken before memories fade further.
Months one through three: the legal theory evaluation. This is where honesty matters most. Your lawyer evaluates whether your specific facts support a design-defect claim (can we prove general causation — that glyphosate causes NHL — and specific causation — that your Roundup exposure caused your NHL?). Whether negligent testing is viable (what do the internal Monsanto documents show about what the company knew?). Whether fraudulent concealment has legs (did Monsanto make specific safety representations beyond the label that were false?).
Not every case will pass this evaluation. Some will. The evaluation is not a rubber stamp — it is a genuine assessment of whether the preemption ruling left your case viable or whether it effectively ended it. A lawyer who tells you every case is viable is selling you something. A lawyer who tells you every case is dead is not doing the work.
Months three through six: the expert development. If a theory survives the evaluation, general-causation experts are retained — oncologists, epidemiologists, toxicologists who can testify that glyphosate causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and that your exposure was sufficient to cause your specific cancer. These experts must be prepared for the defense’s EPA-based challenges. The specific-causation expert — usually a treating oncologist or a forensic toxicologist — must be prepared to connect your exposure history to your diagnosis.
Months six through twelve: discovery and depositions. Written discovery goes to Monsanto/Bayer demanding the internal documents. Depositions of corporate witnesses follow — the scientists who studied glyphosate, the executives who decided what to tell the EPA, the marketing personnel who crafted safety messages. This is where the internal documents either support a negligent-testing or fraud theory or they do not.
The number at the end. If the case survives preemption challenges, survives Daubert, and establishes liability, the damages number is built from the medical cost stream (past and future treatment, surveillance, potential relapse), the lost earning capacity (what you would have earned and can no longer earn), the non-economic losses (pain, suffering, fear, reduced life expectancy), and — if the corporate conduct supports it — punitive damages. In Missouri, none of these categories are capped.
What to Do Right Now
If you have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and you have a history of Roundup exposure, here is what you should do — and what you should not do — in the immediate aftermath of this ruling.
Do this:
- Gather your medical records. Start with the pathology report that confirmed your NHL diagnosis. Add treatment records, medication lists, and any prognosis documentation. These are the foundation of your injury claim and they need to be assembled before retention schedules let them degrade.
- Write down your Roundup usage history. Be specific — what brand, what concentration, how often, how many years, for what purpose. Include approximate purchase dates and locations. Memory fades; a written record does not.
- Talk to a lawyer who understands the post-ruling landscape. Not every lawyer who handled Roundup cases before the ruling is equipped to evaluate surviving theories afterward. The legal analysis has fundamentally changed. You need someone who can honestly tell you whether your case still has a path.
- Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. We will tell you honestly whether we see a viable theory or whether the ruling has closed your case. We do not get paid unless we win.
Do not do this:
- Do not sign anything from Monsanto, Bayer, or their representatives. If you receive a communication offering to resolve your claim, do not respond without speaking to a lawyer first.
- Do not give a recorded statement. Anything you say can and will be used to challenge your causation evidence, your exposure history, or your credibility.
- Do not post about your diagnosis, your Roundup use, or the litigation on social media. The defense monitors social media for inconsistencies between claimed limitations and observed activities.
- Do not assume it is too late — and do not assume it is not. Missouri has historically had one of the longer statutes of limitations for personal injury in the country. But the clock is still running, and for some surviving theories, the limitations analysis may be different than it was for failure-to-warn. The only way to know where you stand on timing is to ask.
Missouri’s Legal Landscape After the Ruling
The Supreme Court’s preemption ruling is a federal constitutional determination that binds all courts — federal and state, in Missouri and everywhere else. No state’s law can now impose a cancer-warning duty on an EPA-registered pesticide label. That part is settled.
But Missouri’s legal framework still matters for any surviving theory:
Comparative fault. Missouri follows a pure comparative fault system. This means that even if you are partly at fault — even substantially at fault — you can still recover, with your award reduced by your percentage of fault. You are not barred from recovery unless your fault reaches 100%. In a toxic-tort case, comparative fault is less likely to be a major factor than in, say, a car crash, but the defense may still argue that you failed to follow label instructions or used the product in an unintended manner. Pure comparative fault means those arguments reduce, not eliminate, your recovery.
Damages. Missouri does not impose general caps on compensatory or punitive damages in product liability actions. This is significant. In some states, non-economic damages (pain and suffering, emotional harm, loss of enjoyment of life) are capped at a statutory maximum. Missouri is not one of those states. If liability is established on a surviving theory, the full measure of damages — economic and non-economic — is available. Punitive damages are also uncapped in Missouri, which matters if the evidence shows corporate conduct that rises to the level warranting punishment.
Statute of limitations. Missouri’s personal injury statute of limitations is one of the longer in the nation — commonly cited as five years. For toxic exposure cases, the discovery rule may extend the effective filing window, because the clock may not start running until the plaintiff discovered or should have discovered the connection between the injury and the exposure. However, the current limitations period and any post-ruling legislative responses should be confirmed for your specific situation. The longer window has historically helped delayed-discovery toxic exposure claims in Missouri, but the preemption ruling now renders the failure-to-warn theory unavailable regardless of timeliness — so the SOL matters for surviving theories, not for the one the Supreme Court just closed.
Missouri has historically been a significant venue for product liability and toxic tort litigation, with notable verdicts in Roundup and similar mass tort actions. The state’s civil justice system has traditionally permitted broad discovery, robust punitive damages claims, and jury trials that have produced substantial plaintiff verdicts. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Missouri, has been an important intermediate appellate forum for product liability questions. The Supreme Court’s ruling now binds the Eighth Circuit and all Missouri state courts on the preemption question — but Missouri’s favorable damages environment and procedural framework remain intact for any case that clears the preemption hurdle.
For more information on our toxic tort practice and how we handle chemical exposure cases, visit our toxic tort claim lawyer page. You can also see our full range of law practice areas to understand how product liability fits within our broader practice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still sue Monsanto if I used Roundup and got non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma?
The answer depends on what legal theory your case relies on. The failure-to-warn theory — that Monsanto should have put a cancer warning on the label — is now foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s ruling. Alternative theories, including design defect, negligent testing, and fraudulent concealment, may still be available depending on your specific facts, the strength of your causation evidence, and what the internal corporate documents show. Not every case will have a viable surviving theory. An honest evaluation by a lawyer who understands the post-ruling landscape is the only way to know.
Did the Supreme Court say Roundup is safe?
No. The Supreme Court did not rule on whether glyphosate causes cancer. The ruling was about federal preemption — whether the EPA’s decision not to require a cancer warning on the label prevents state courts from imposing one through a lawsuit. The Court said the EPA’s labeling determination controls. The scientific question of whether glyphosate is carcinogenic remains contested, with the EPA saying it is “not likely” carcinogenic and the WHO’s cancer agency (IARC) classifying it as a “probable” carcinogen. The ruling resolved the legal conflict, not the scientific one.
What is FIFRA preemption and why does it matter for my case?
FIFRA is the federal law that governs pesticide registration and labeling. It contains a preemption provision that prohibits states from imposing labeling requirements different from those approved by the EPA. The Supreme Court held that because the EPA approved Roundup’s label without a cancer warning, state tort claims seeking to require such a warning are preempted — meaning federal law overrides the state claim. This matters because it is the legal mechanism that closed the failure-to-warn door. Understanding that the ruling is about labeling preemption, not about whether Roundup causes cancer, is the foundation for evaluating whether a surviving theory exists.
I was already part of the Roundup litigation. What happens to my case now?
If your case rests on failure-to-warn, it faces dismissal on preemption grounds. If your case includes alternative theories — or if your lawyer can amend to add them — those claims may continue. The status of any pending settlement, including Bayer’s $7.25 billion class-action settlement framework, in light of the ruling is an open question that requires individual evaluation. Do not assume your case is automatically over, and do not assume it is automatically fine. Call a lawyer and get a specific answer for your situation.
Is it too late to file a Roundup lawsuit?
That depends on your state’s statute of limitations and when you discovered (or should have discovered) the connection between your non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and your Roundup exposure. Missouri has historically had one of the longer limitations periods in the country. The discovery rule may extend the filing window for toxic exposure cases. But the clock is running, and for surviving theories, the limitations analysis may differ from the one that applied to failure-to-warn. Confirm the current deadline for your specific situation with a lawyer — do not assume, and do not wait.
What if I was partly at fault for my exposure?
Missouri follows a pure comparative fault system, which means your own share of fault reduces your recovery but does not bar it. Even if the defense argues you failed to follow label instructions or used the product in an unintended way, you can still recover — your award would be reduced by your percentage of fault. In toxic exposure cases, comparative fault is less likely to be a major factor than in other types of injury cases, but it remains a potential defense argument.
How much is my Roundup case worth?
If your case cannot get past preemption or cannot prove causation, it is worth zero — and any lawyer who tells you otherwise before evaluating your specific facts is not being honest. If a surviving theory is established and liability is proven, the value depends on the severity of your non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the treatment required, your economic losses, and whether punitive damages are available. In Missouri, compensatory and punitive damages are uncapped. The overturned million-dollar award in the Missouri case that reached the Supreme Court is a reference point for what a single-plaintiff NHL case was worth pre-ruling. What the same case is worth on a surviving theory is being determined case by case in the courts right now. For a detailed breakdown of how case value is calculated, watch Ralph Manginello’s guide to what a personal injury case is worth.
Should I still call a lawyer even though the Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs?
Yes — if you have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and a significant history of Roundup exposure, you should call. The ruling closed the main door, but it did not close every door. Whether any surviving theory applies to your facts is a question that can only be answered by a lawyer who has read the ruling, understands FIFRA preemption, knows the alternative theories, and can evaluate your specific exposure history and medical records. The consultation is free. The cost of not calling — letting evidence disappear, letting the statute of limitations run, missing a theory that could have worked — is far higher.
What makes a Roundup case more likely to survive after the ruling?
The strongest candidates for continued litigation are plaintiffs with documented heavy, long-term Roundup exposure (not occasional residential use), confirmed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma with a strong temporal fit between exposure and diagnosis, jurisdictions with favorable product-liability law and no damages caps, and cases where discovery reveals internal Monsanto documents showing what the company knew about cancer risks separate from the labeling question. Cases with weak exposure history, uncertain causation, or minimal damages are much less likely to survive.
Will Bayer try to use this ruling to close all Roundup cases?
Bayer’s CEO said “It’s time to put it behind us” — which signals exactly that strategy. Bayer will argue that the ruling’s preemption logic extends beyond failure-to-warn to every theory that depends on glyphosate’s carcinogenicity. Whether courts accept that argument is an open question. The ruling addressed labeling preemption specifically. Its reach into non-labeling theories like design defect, negligent testing, and fraud will be litigated in lower courts. This is one of the most important ongoing legal fights in the Roundup space, and it is a reason to have a lawyer who is tracking these developments in real time.
Why Call Us
Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he reads closely, writes precisely, and does not accept the first version of a story he is told. He leads our trial team and has recovered more than $50 million for injured clients across his career. You can read more about Ralph Manginello on his attorney page.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where claims like yours are priced, delayed, and denied. He knows how adjusters set reserves in the first 48 hours, how valuation software discounts injuries it cannot see, how the recorded-statement call is engineered to get you to say “I’m feeling okay,” and how the quick settlement check arrives before the real medical results do. He now uses that inside knowledge for injured clients. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. You can read more about Lupe Peña on his attorney page.
We work on contingency. That means 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. We have live staff answering our phones 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — not an answering service, not a call center, but people who work for this firm and who can talk to you right now.
If you are wondering whether a lawyer is even worth it after a ruling like this — whether the fight is already over before it begins — watch Ralph’s direct answer on whether personal injury lawyers are worth it. The short version: a ruling that closes one door does not close the building. But you will not know which doors remain open unless someone who understands the post-ruling landscape walks the hallway with you.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win. Hablamos Español.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case depends on its specific facts. The Supreme Court’s ruling has fundamentally changed the Roundup litigation landscape, and the information here reflects our understanding of that ruling as of the date of publication. The law continues to develop as lower courts interpret the ruling’s reach. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.