Crop Protection Finally Gets Its Day in Supreme Court
March 25, 2026 After years of waiting, it looks as if the highest court in the land will finally weigh in on the question of lawfare against crop protection products.
For decades now, crop protection products have been under almost constant attack across the nation’s court system. The poster child for this crusade against crop protection products is glyphosate, specifically Roundup from Bayer. Since the mid-2010s, thousands of lawsuits have been filed against Roundup, claiming the brand has caused health issues for users. In fact, the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr., first rose to prominence as a lawyer in a glyphosate damage case that took place back in 2018.
As industry observers have frequently pointed out, many of these lawsuits seem to be based on misinformation, with sound science and existing laws being overlooked. Indeed, Bayer has made this exact claim in at least one of the cases, Monsanto Co. v. John Durnell.
“In Durnell, the jury’s verdict rests solely on the claim that Missouri law requires the company to warn that Roundup is carcinogenic, the precise warning that EPA rejects,” said Bayer in a written statement. “This claim is plainly in conflict with the product label EPA approved under federal law, based on the agency’s rigorous scientific assessment, and cannot be changed without agency approval.”
In this day and age of high-speed information sharing, misinformation has the ability to spread like wildfire. “Misinformation travels at 10 times the speed of accurate information,” said Alexandra Dunn, President and CEO at CropLife America, speaking at the 2026 Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association annual meeting. “This is what we are dealing with today.”
In early 2025, Bayer filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in the Durnell case. The company argued that a split among federal circuit courts in the Roundup personal injury litigation, on the question of whether federal law preempts state-based failure-to-warn claims, warrants review and resolution by the country’s top court.
This effort was supported by numerous industry groups including the Modern Ag Alliance. In addition, the Solicitor General of the U.S., John Sauer, came out in support of this review by the Supreme Court.
“The support of the U.S. Government is an important step and good news for U.S. farmers, who need regulatory clarity,” said Bayer CEO Bill Anderson in a statement. “The stakes could not be higher as the misapplication of federal law jeopardizes the availability of innovative tools for farmers and investments in the broader U.S. economy.”
In late January, the Supreme Court announced that it would indeed hear the glyphosate case. Anderson called this move “an important step in our multi-pronged strategy to significantly contain” these kinds of lawsuits against crop protection products.
“It is time for the U.S. legal system to establish that companies should not be punished under state laws for complying with federal warning label requirements,” he said.
So now, all eyes in the agricultural community are on the Supreme Court. A decision in this case is expected in June.
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