Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson called out the majority following a 7-2 Supreme Court ruling that sided with pesticide manufacturers and determined the EPA is the arbiter — not state courts — to decide on cancer warnings on labels.
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The ruling in Monsanto v. Durnell reversed the Missouri Court of Appeals after John Durnell sued Monsanto in Missouri state court, claiming 20 years of using Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide designed to control weeds, caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He argued Monsanto failed to include a cancer warning on its label. A jury awarded him more than $1 million.
The majority’s decision could signal that Roundup cancer plaintiffs nationwide will lose their primary avenue for state tort lawsuits. Their recourse is now limited to petitioning the EPA directly to change its assessment of glyphosate.
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In Brown Jackson’s dissent, which was joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, she argued that under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the law outlines that registration cannot be used as a defense to a misbranding charge — meaning EPA approval isn’t conclusive proof the label is adequate. Missouri’s tort duty merely parallels FIFRA’s own misbranding prohibition (which requires adequate warnings), so it adds nothing new and shouldn’t be preempted.
“The majority reads into FIFRA a labeling requirement that does not exist, and it reads out of FIFRA the statute’s ongoing prohibition on misbranding,” Brown Jackson wrote. “This interpretation cannot be squared with the text of FIFRA or our precedents. Ultimately, the effect of the majority’s interpretation is both remarkable and regrettable, for it unjustifiably closes the courthouse doors to state tort plaintiffs like Durnell.”
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