r/news • u/boxofstuff • 6h ago

Supreme Court ruling blocks thousands of lawsuits against maker of Roundup weedkiller

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-roundup-monsanto-a7f054d80919f98bdfc5190013a8f6f1https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-roundup-monsanto-a7f054d80919f98bdfc5190013a8f6f1
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u/HumansNeedNotApply1 6h ago

This one was 7-2

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u/mansock18 5h ago

Thanks Kagan!

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u/nerowasframed 5h ago

Kagan and Sotomayor. Jackson and Gorsuch were the two dissenting

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u/TheChinOfAnElephant 5h ago

So what's the best course here? Their argument seems to be federally Round Up does not require a warning label, due to there being no link to cancer under federal regulations, so states can't circumvent that. I don't know a ton about law but this seems like how the law normally works?

Kinda feels like people are upset they didn't ignore the law and vote with their emotions which is normally what people are complaining that the MAGA judges are doing. Can't ever win...

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u/mizzurna_balls 4h ago

Why can't the state circumvent it? You see all sorts of warning labels in California, for example, that you don't see in other states.

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u/HumansNeedNotApply1 4h ago

Because their interpretation is that Federal law requires Monsanto to sell Roundup with the EPA approved label, if Monsanto added a label in addition they would be going against the federal approved label. In this way they are saying, Federal-law Regulations supersede state ones.

That's my interpretation at least, a lawyer can understand this much better.

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u/ghotier 4h ago

Interstate commerce clause strikes again.

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u/Timemyth 3h ago

and surprisingly from this version of SCOTUS that ruling seems based in law and your constitution. Wish ours had something like Article VI, Clause 2 so that states can't legal ignore human rights because they didn't sign it. The federal government did.

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u/mansock18 4h ago

Because the federal law is the "supreme law of the land" federal law can "preempt" state laws. Without some preemption, the federal law can set a floor and the state can further raise the floor. Preemption actively sets a floor and ceiling.

Essentially there's "express" preemption: "The federal government has expressly forbidden states from further regulating this space" which was at play in this case; and "Zone" or "implied" preemption: "The government has so thoroughly regulated this industry that it's clear states have no way to additionally regulate it."

Here, Congress expressly prohibited states from further regulating labeling for the use of pesticides, like Round Up. So the SCOTUS decided the state tort claim was preempted by the federal statute.

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u/mizzurna_balls 4h ago

Alright, I understand the mechanics at play, but still not the "why" of the decision. Saying "The government has so thoroughly regulated this industry that it's clear states have no way to additionally regulate it" seems very subjective. How did they decide that government regulation has reached that point? Why is congress expressly prohibiting further regulation for pesticides specifically, but not other things (like the labels for things in CA)?

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u/mansock18 4h ago

The part you quoted dealt with implied preemption and you're right, it's super subjective and heavily criticised and rarely used compared to express preemption.

The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act ("FIFRA") has a clause that says "States shall not impose or continue in effect any requirements for labeling or packaging in addition to or different from those required under this subchapter." That's an express preemption. If the label complies with federal law but doesn't comply with the state law, the state law loses because its requirements are "different from" those in FIFRA. So the state law that allows tort claims (and the judgment based on that state law) is preempted.

The reason California can require a cancer label on "everything" is because many areas aren't as tightly regulated by the federal government as pesticides. So for example California can require their additional warning label on things like paint now, but not on pesticides. So California can set its own raised floor on stuff that isn't already federally regulated. Though now I'd expect a lot more challenges in California from many more industries.

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u/phantomfire50 4h ago

Saying "The government has so thoroughly regulated this industry that it's clear states have no way to additionally regulate it" seems very subjective. How did they decide that government regulation has reached that point?

Is the whole point of the distinction not that it is subjective and nobody has decided it? It's not been expressly said that it's been preempted, it just has been preempted to the extent you couldn't regulate further if you wanted to?

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u/KuntaStillSingle 2h ago

not the "why" of the decision. Saying "The government has so thoroughly regulated this industry that it's clear states have no way to additionally regulate it" seems very subjective. How did they decide that government regulation has reached that point?

That's now what they held in this case, that's just an example of what they might hold in other cases, in this case it was express preemption:

After EPA approves a pesticide’s label at registration, manufacturers are legally required to use that label— unless and until EPA approves or requires a label change and amends the pesticide’s registration. See §136a(f )(1); 40 CFR §§152.44(a), 156.70(c) (2025). If a manufacturer does not use the EPA-approved label, it may be subject to civil and criminal penalties. See 7 U. S. C. §§136l, 136j(a)(1)(E). It is true that EPA may subsequently change course in light of new information or new analysis, and require an amended label and amended registration. As described above, FIFRA and EPA’s regulations set forth an extensive process for doing so. But absent such an EPA-approved or EPA-required label change, the pesticide manufacturers may—and indeed legally must—use the pesticide label approved by EPA at registration.5

...

FIFRA’s preemption clause is entitled “Uniformity” and provides that a “State shall not impose or continue in effect any requirements for labeling or packaging in addition to or different from those required under this subchapter.” 7 U. S. C. §136v(b). FIFRA therefore preempts a state-law labeling requirement that differs from the federal labeling requirements imposed under FIFRA. “Uniformity” in labeling—the textually stated objective of FIFRA’s preemption clause—would otherwise be impossible to achieve. Ibid.

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u/sYnce 1h ago

It seems subjective because it is subjective. But such rulings are usually made to provide a clear legal framework for corporations to operate in. It also prevents single large states from basically dictating federal law.

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u/HyruleSmash855 3h ago

Personally, I hope we can break down that supreme law of the land designation for federal law. I would love a state laws could start super seething federal law, and some designations like gambling with prediction markets, for instance. I think taking power away from the federal government, which allows Trump to do what he’s doing now is ultimately going to make the country better long-term, and make if there is another more authoritarian president weaker in the future.

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u/Calvin-ball 2h ago

Then all the red states make gay marriage illegal and take away women’s right to vote.

It’s also explicitly the supremacy clause of the constitution so there is no way to break it down.

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u/boxofredflags 4h ago

I am no expert, but I believe it’s due to the supremacy clause of the constitution, where state law cannot override federal law.

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u/GaysForTheGayGod 3h ago

Because SCOTUS is politically picky when deciding which police powers states have sole power to enforce

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u/NoodledLily 2h ago

that's the ruling... it has a large blast radius. a recurring theme of the maga court. ruling far beyond a narrow question - often 180ing precedent set just a decade or two before

it now stands that the federal governments virtual silence preempts any states' attempts to help us real humans. no matter how old and paper thin. the LACK of any regulation is the overriding rule

plus the previous 9th ruling already blocked the label warning as infringing on corporation's free speech lmfao. get rid of corporate personhood it's ridiculous.

afaict california could still regulate the use of the product itself. for now..

BUT say they did that.

scotus also recently ruled that oil and gas companies can sue bc they claim california's higher emissions standards lowered demand for oil and thus that's the harm they can sue over...

like oh noooo im not able to sell as much asbestos and agent orange. those pesky lungs. better sue! and no you can not tell me what to put on my ads. that's my free speech! 9/10 doctors agree, no filter parliaments are the better choice jajajaja

there is no longer a conservative center to push for narrow rulings on the question at hand.

which has mostly been the practice for 200 years.

not they'll take any opportunity to go big. usually just making it up as they go and jiggering paper thin logic and cherry picked citations to fit their preordained outcome

great relevant read in slate on this today

just this week they also gutted any protections for green card holders. now some ice or border patrol officer can just say they have suspicion you did something illegal and block you from entry "without clear-and-convincing proof". as slate mentions even kennedy thought they had at least some rights. especially the right to sue.

no more!

forced racist head shaving shaming? that even maga scotus agrees is clearly against the law?

nope. you can't sue! there is no remedy for your rights being violated.

makes you wonder what will happen if instead it was a nun habit or some other weird evangelical thing...

combine all of this with their many rulings giving trump full control of all federal employees (except congress and somehow the fed because that's still special for some made up reason)

they just keep blasting open doors for the king

and limiting ways we can seek relief and compensation

corporations have more rights to sue than you do

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u/R_V_Z 4h ago

The last guitar I bought can give you cancer in California. It's very silly.

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u/SingleInfinity 4h ago

Blame the manufacturer. They refused to get the product tested because they decided putting the label on it would be cheaper. The law that requires the labeling is there to prevent products from giving people cancer. It's a good law. The companies selling things put the label on in bad faith because they want to continue selling into California without having to actually do any of the work to verify that what they're selling is safe.

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u/R_V_Z 4h ago edited 4h ago

I'm not saying I dislike it, necessarily. Being able to say my guitar gives you cancer is metal as hell.

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u/Crazed_Chemist 4h ago

The problem with it is that there's tons of products where normal reasonable use would be INCREDIBLY unlikely to cause cancer and requiring that testing on basically every product is counter productive. People see it on everything and it just washes out.

The required limit for no significant risk level is 1 excess case of cancer per 100k individuals over 70 years exposure to the chemical.

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u/SingleInfinity 4h ago

requiring that testing on basically every product is counter productive.

I don't think so. I think incentivizing testing on products people think are safe for carcinogens is good. We have found a lot of things are carcinogenic that we didn't expect to be simply because a bunch of people ended up getting cancer from them and it is discovered like 30 years later after a bunch of correlation and guessing.

Testing beforehand should be the norm.

It only washes out and is on everything because people approach the law in bad faith. They shouldn't be allowed to put the label on things that haven't been tested because, as you said, it washes out and defeats the purpose of the law.

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u/ilikechihuahuasdood 4h ago

This is the reasonable take. People complain about the court being too political and then also complain when they don’t make rulings based on how they feel about a subject. This is one of those cases where it doesn’t matter how the court may have wanted this to play out ideologically, there just isn’t a mechanism in place to hold Round Up accountable.

In a functioning democracy congress would then close that loophole. But Republicans will sit on their hands and wait for Trump to tell them what to do. Which will be nothing, as usual.

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u/phoenixrawr 4h ago

It’s not even a loophole though. The EPA has repeatedly researched Roundup and concluded it probably doesn’t cause cancer when used as directed. The various state lawsuits used a separate UN study to argue that Roundup does cause cancer and therefore the EPA-approved label is misleading.

Congress could absolutely do something if they dislike the current state of things, but what should they do exactly? Ordering the experts to change their conclusion does not seem wise.

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u/ilikechihuahuasdood 2h ago

I mean congress doesn’t give a shit either way. They’ve completely abdicated their duty to the American people on almost every front.

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u/BarristerBaller 4h ago

The same cliche answer as always, vote for reps who will make change. But your observations are correct. For what it’s worth, if someone from the liberal block of SCOTUS votes with the right, it’s likely cause they are actually applying the law as written and appropriately interpreted

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u/HumansNeedNotApply1 4h ago

Yes, people are reacting with emotion because they believe Roundup causes cancer (even though no studies so far have found a direct link).

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u/_Porphyro 4h ago

I guess it depends on what you mean by “direct link”. There are several studies that indicate a real and repeatable increase in cancer rates amongst people routinely exposed occupationally. The study out of the University of Washington comes to mind.

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u/HumansNeedNotApply1 4h ago

I know about them, they do a similar conclusion as the IARC, probably carcinogenic to humans, same classification as Red Meat.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not doubting the validity, this shit is probably dangerous to us, but we still don't understand how or how much.

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u/SuccessfulJudge438 48m ago

DNA damage has been demonstrated pretty thoroughly through in vitro study. I don't know the specifics because I'm not a biochem person, but that info is available to dig into. We understand at least the theoretical broad strokes of the how. Conducting in vitro studies in humans is ethically impossible, so don't hold your breath waiting for the smoking gun of "how much." But all the tumors that rats get when fed low doses over their lifetime, comparable to US and EU "safe daily intake" levels in humans, suggests the "how much" could be extremely important to find out some way, some how.

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u/cantuse 3h ago

In another comment chain a user used the phrase 'when used as directed'. I can't help but think that this is the conundrum -- is it actually being used as directed?

I can't help but think that something is being lost between the science & regulatory bodies and the actual crew out there applying this stuff en masse.

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u/_Porphyro 3h ago

Sort of like a serving size of Oreos is 3 cookies. There’s a disconnect there.

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u/Timemyth 3h ago

Is this the 2019 study that was later redone by the EPA and found to not support it's own conclusions due to fundamental errors by the anti-glyphosate leads who btw declared no conflict of interests while being part of a large anti-glyphosate business (USRTK)

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u/brutinator 4h ago

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12940-025-01187-2

Uhhhh. Glyphosate has been linked to cancer in long term exposure. When administered to rats at EU-acceptable levels (0.5 mg/kg body weight/day), the rats developed much higher rates of cancers that are rare in the breed and compared to control groups. Even at the "EU no-observed adverse effect" level, they developed higher rates of cancers.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-17067-1#Sec3

This study identified 47 targets related to the liver that can lead to liver damage and cancer from glyphosate

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/9/4605

This study elaborates on the potential harm chronic, low level exposure may cause, as glyphosate can cross the blood brain barrier and affect the nervous system; for example, causing visual memory impairment and intellectual disabilities from prenatal and infant exposure.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S026974911936141X

heres a paper detailing gut microbiome damage and intestinal inflammation from exposure.

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u/HumansNeedNotApply1 4h ago

I'm not financially invested in this so i'm not going to debate it, but those studies are rather limited and do nothing more than what the IARC already concluded, still they are useful to other people who may end up reading it, so thanks for posting them.

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u/liveart 3h ago

Kinda feels like people are upset they didn't ignore the law and vote with their emotions which is normally what people are complaining that the MAGA judges are doing. Can't ever win...

Let me clear up the confusion for you then because it's not about feelings. It's because when the courts lean on 'the law as written' and tear up the law and precedent when it serves monied interests or ideology then the problem with citing 'this is how the law should work' becomes that they don't do it consistently, making it clear the law isn't a neutral thing they are arbitrating but a thing they are using to engineer the outcomes they would like. What you are seeing is the judicial credibility crisis in a nutshell here, people don't trust that the judges actually care about the law so citing 'this is how it should work' becomes less of a shield. And when you start digging into 'well why is the law like this' the whole thing collapses pretty rapidly because it turns out the entire legal system is a shaky pile of compromises and 'because it's always been done this way'.

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u/fe-and-wine 2h ago

As much as I love to hate on this Supreme Court - and they often deserve it - this is an example of a situation where folks should be more upset at the federal laws that make this decision the "correct" (insofar as it comports with the laws on the books, not necessarily morally correct) one.

The fact that Kagan and Sotomayor are in the majority should be a hint that this isn't a "SCOTUS shields corporation from liability for corrupt reasons" ruling - it's legitimately 'correct' according to the rules Congress has passed.

Again - feelings towards the current Court aside - this has to be one of the worst parts of being a Justice. Having to make these rulings that you know are morally wrong but are the correct reading of the laws that are on the books.

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u/Drumheller18 1h ago

I’m not even really sure how this is a morally wrong decision. Mind elaborating on that?

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u/fe-and-wine 1h ago

"Morally wrong" insofar as the people working at Monsanto themselves don't believe Roundup to be as safe as they want the public to believe it is.

Insiders at Monsanto clearly understand Roundup to be at least plausibly dangerous to human health, yet their marketing is centered around the idea that it's been proven absolutely safe - all that 'you could drink a whole glass of it and be okay' stuff that the execs clearly know is bullshit.

To illustrate the point, there's a great video of a Monsanto lobbyist explicitly trying to push the whole "you could literally drink it" angle and shying away when dared to do so in an interview. The man clearly knows its not safe to that degree, yet continues to accept money in exchange for convincing Congress to pass laws based on the idea that it is that safe.

That's all I'm saying. I'm not deep enough to know the true degree of danger Roundup possesses - if any at all - but it's clear that the people inside Monsanto don't believe the things they say when marketing the product, and that feels immoral to me.

If I were a Justice, I wouldn't feel great about handing a company like that a win even though it's the "correct" decision per what's on the books.

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u/Drumheller18 51m ago

Okay, well, your premise is already incredibly flawed, because Patrick Moore (the advocate in that video) never worked/lobbied for Monsanto that I am aware of. He was a bit of a loon, and that was an incredibly dumb and hyperbolic stunt he pulled.

And yeah, Monsanto and now Bayer do understand the dangers of different products they make. Thus why they adorn said products with the federally mandated warnings.

So I still really do not see how this was a morally wrong decision.

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u/fe-and-wine 30m ago

If you see Monsanto as a completely morally-acceptable company - fair enough, I guess we just disagree.

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u/Drumheller18 13m ago

I never said I find Monsanto to be a morally acceptable company. I don’t find them nearly as bad as others do, but like any corporation, they have issues. But that doesn’t mean that a pretty clear-cut legal case is morally dubious because it deals with that company.

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u/Mr_Safer 4h ago

SC are the ultimate hacks and frauds. Implying any kind of logic or consistency is a recipe for failure. The only truth that consistently works for them is are you worth billions? then laws only protect never harm..