Agrochemical maker Bayer and attorneys for cancer patients announced a proposed $7.25 billion settlement Tuesday to resolve thousands of U.S. lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller Roundup could cause cancer.
The proposed settlement comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments in April on Bayer’s assertion that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of Roundup without a cancer warning should invalidate claims filed in state courts. That case would not be affected by the proposed settlement.
But the settlement would eliminate some of the risk from an eventual Supreme Court ruling. Patients would be assured of receiving settlement money even if the Supreme Court rules in Bayer’s favor. And Bayer would be protected from potentially larger costs if the high court rules against it.
Germany-based Bayer, which acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, disputes the assertion that Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But the company has warned that mounting legal costs are threatening its ability to continue selling the product in U.S. agricultural markets.
“Litigation uncertainly has plagued the company for years, and this settlement gives the company a road to closure,” Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said Tuesday.
The proposed settlement was filed in St. Louis Circuit Court in Missouri, home to Bayer’s North America crop science division and the state where many of the lawsuits have been brought. The settlement still needs the court’s approval.
Settlement payouts to the sick would vary
About 200,000 Roundup-related claims have been made against Bayer. That includes more than 125,000 plaintiffs who sued since 2015, according to the settlement documents. Few cases have gone to jurors, with 13 verdicts for Bayer and 11 for plaintiffs, including a $2.1 billion award by a Georgia jury last year. Others already have been resolved through separate settlements, including two recent ones that would take care of about 77,000 claims, the court documents said.
The newly proposed nationwide settlement is designed to address most of the remaining lawsuits, as well as any additional cases brought in the coming years by people who were exposed to Roundup before Tuesday. If too many plaintiffs opt out of the proposed settlement, Bayer said it reserves the right to cancel it. But Bayer did not specify how many opt-outs would have to occur.
The deal calls for Bayer to make annual payments into a special fund for up to 21 years, totaling as much as $7.25 billion. The amount of money paid out to individuals would vary depending on how they used Roundup, how old they were when diagnosed and the severity of their non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
An agricultural, industrial or turf worker exposed at length to Roundup would receive an average of $165,000 if they were diagnosed with an aggressive form of the illness while younger than age 60, according to the proposed settlement. Meanwhile, a residential Roundup user diagnosed between the ages of 60-77 with a less aggressive form of the illness would receive an average of $20,000. And those diagnosed at age 78 or older would get an average of $10,000.
“No settlement can erase a diagnosis, but this agreement is designed to ensure that both today’s and tomorrow’s patients have access to meaningful compensation,” said attorney Christopher Seeger, who would represent current claimants under the settlement.
Whether that compensation seems meaningful to patients remains to be seen. Attorney Matt Clement, who represents about 280 Roundup plaintiffs, said he was surprised by the proposed settlement and expects a lot of his clients will opt out.
The proposed payouts “are exceedingly too small,” Clement said.
Bayer gets Trump’s backing in court
Because of lawsuits, Bayer already has stopped using glyphosate in Roundup sold in the U.S. residential lawn and garden market. But glyphosate remains in agricultural products. It is designed to be used with genetically modified seeds that can resist the weedkiller’s deadly effect, thus allowing farmers to produce more while conserving the soil by tilling it less.
Though some studies associate glyphosate with cancer, the EPA has said it is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed. The federally approved label for Roundup includes no warning of cancer.
Bayer contends that federal pesticide laws preempt states from adopting additional labeling for products and thus prohibit failure-to-warn lawsuits brought under state laws. Bayer is making that argument to the Supreme Court in an appeal of a Missouri case that awarded $1.25 million to a man who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after spraying Roundup on a community garden in St. Louis.
President Donald Trump’s administration has weighed in on Bayer’s behalf, reversing the position of former President Joe Biden’s administration and putting it at odds with some supporters of the Make America Healthy Again agenda who oppose giving the company the legal immunity it seeks.
The company simultaneously has been lobbying state legislatures to shield pesticide manufacturers from state failure-to-warn lawsuits when their products follow federal labeling requirements. North Dakota became the first state to enact such a law last April. Georgia became the second state to do so in May.
