A St. Louis jury has handed Bayer its first courtroom victory in a Roundup cancer trial since the United States Supreme Court reshaped the litigation in June, unanimously rejecting claims by three women who said the weedkiller caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The Bayer Roundup trial verdict, delivered on Thursday, October 29, 2026, is the first test of whether the lawsuits that survive the Supreme Court's Monsanto v. Durnell ruling can still win before a jury — and, on this evidence, the answer for plaintiffs is now much harder.
The case, Theresa Aretino, et al. v. Monsanto Company, was tried in Missouri Circuit Court in St. Louis. The jury found for Monsanto on every claim the three plaintiffs pursued: design defect, fraud and negligence. The women had sued in 2020, saying regular use of Roundup left them with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. One of them, Cynthia Fernandez, died before the trial began, and her claim was pursued after her death.
The trial opened on September 29, 2026, before a different St. Louis judge from the one considering the proposed class settlement. Over about four weeks, the jury heard the plaintiffs' argument that Monsanto failed to adequately test Roundup before selling it, and that the product was defectively designed and unreasonably dangerous. Plaintiffs' attorney Greg Dovel told jurors in opening statements that Monsanto did not adequately test its weedkiller — a central theme of the plaintiffs' case.
Bayer denied the claims throughout, maintaining that decades of studies show glyphosate, Roundup's active ingredient, is safe and does not cause cancer. The company also argued that the design-defect claims were foreclosed by the Supreme Court's ruling, a position the plaintiffs' lawyers disputed. The jury's unanimous defence verdict on Thursday resolved that argument in Bayer's favour, at least in this courtroom: the plaintiffs, the jury found, could not prove their claims on the evidence presented.
The verdict was announced by Bayer in a statement on Thursday. Bill Dodero, Bayer's US general counsel and global head of litigation, said: "We are pleased with the jury's favorable verdict for Monsanto validating our belief that there is no evidence to prove design defect, fraud or negligence claims in the Roundup litigation."
He added: "This verdict should send a strong signal that plaintiffs who wish to pursue claims in the court system following the Durnell ruling will face significant challenges both in demonstrating they have viable claims and putting forth the necessary evidence to prove them in court."
Roundup litigation has weighed on Bayer since its 2018 acquisition of Monsanto, costing the company billions of dollars and dragging down its share price. An earlier settlement reached around 2020 resolved roughly 100,000 claims for about $10 billion to $11 billion. Even after that, about 65,000 claims remained outstanding in US state and federal courts from people who say they developed cancer after using Roundup at home or at work.
For most of that litigation, the central theory was failure to warn: plaintiffs argued Monsanto should have put a cancer warning on Roundup's label. That theory was dealt a decisive blow on June 25, 2026, when the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Monsanto v. Durnell that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, known as FIFRA, expressly preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims where the claim would require a label different from the one approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Durnell case itself began in 2019, when John Durnell sued in Missouri state court, saying he had used Roundup for about 20 years and developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A jury awarded him more than $1 million — $1.25 million in compensatory damages, according to the dissent — on the failure-to-warn theory, and the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, held that because the EPA has repeatedly concluded glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer, it has not required a cancer warning on Roundup labels, and FIFRA's uniformity clause bars states from imposing labelling requirements "in addition to or different from" federal requirements.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, arguing that the majority misunderstood FIFRA, that Durnell's claim merely paralleled the federal misbranding prohibition, and that the ruling left Durnell without a remedy. But the majority view is now the law, and it removed the theory on which most Roundup cases had been built.
What it did not directly decide was whether design-defect and negligence claims — which do not depend on what the label said — could still succeed. That was the question the Aretino trial was designed to test, and it is why lawyers on both sides were watching St. Louis so closely.
The Aretino jury's answer was unambiguous: unanimous, and for the defence, on all three remaining theories. That matters for two reasons. First, it is the first time a court has tested, at trial, whether the evidence can support design-defect and negligence claims in the post-Durnell landscape. Second, it came in St. Louis, the same city where the proposed $7.25 billion settlement is under review — a reminder that the trial and settlement tracks are running in parallel, before different judges, with different stakes.
The plaintiffs' lawyers maintain that design-defect and negligence arguments remain valid despite Durnell. Bayer argues they are also barred. Thursday's verdict does not settle that legal dispute as a matter of precedent — a jury verdict is not an appellate ruling — but it does show, in practical terms, what a jury does with those claims when the warning-label argument is off the table. For other plaintiffs weighing whether to press on or join a settlement, that practical signal may matter as much as the legal theory.
It is also worth noting what the verdict does not decide. It does not find that glyphosate is safe as a matter of science, and it does not bind any other jury. Each case turns on its own evidence, its own plaintiffs and its own record. A different jury, hearing a different presentation, could reach a different result. But the first post-Durnell jury to hear the surviving theories rejected all of them.
Bayer's statement framed the verdict as validation. "Glyphosate remains one of the most studied agricultural tools in history," the company said, adding that "the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence and the consensus of regulatory bodies and their scientific assessments worldwide support the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides when used as directed."
The company also repeated the EPA's position: the agency "has repeatedly and unequivocally determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic and has consistently approved Roundup labels that contain no cancer warnings." Bayer said it would "vigorously defend its products in any remaining litigation" and described glyphosate herbicides as "critical tools that farmers rely on to produce affordable food."
On the other side of the scientific debate, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic" to humans in 2015, a conclusion Bayer has disputed, calling it an outlier opinion based on flawed methodology. The EPA, meanwhile, has previously concluded glyphosate is probably not carcinogenic but is conducting a fresh safety review, which it has estimated it will complete by the end of 2026. That review, when it lands, could shift the regulatory backdrop again — in either direction.
Plaintiffs' lawyers have not, in the reporting so far, conceded that the remaining theories are dead. Their position before trial was that design-defect and negligence claims survive Durnell precisely because they do not ask a court to rewrite the label. Thursday's loss is a setback for that position, but a single verdict rarely ends a mass litigation — and the settlement process, not the next trial, is where most of the remaining claims are likely to be resolved.
The stakes here go well beyond three plaintiffs. About 65,000 claims remain, and Bayer is seeking to resolve nearly all existing and future claims through a $7.25 billion class action settlement announced in February 2026. A final approval hearing was held on September 14, 2026, before Judge Timothy Boyer in a St. Louis-area Missouri court, and the proposal remains under judicial review. Objecting law firms argued the payouts undervalue claimants' cases, while Bayer's lawyers told the court: "This is the settlement. There is not another settlement."
The proposed settlement uses tiered payouts, reported to range from $10,000 to $165,000 for people exposed to the weedkiller who subsequently developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma, based on factors including age at diagnosis and severity of illness, with payouts distributed over an extended multi-year period. It also seeks $675 million in attorneys' fees, according to reporting of the hearing. One plaintiffs' attorney told the judge that roughly 800 to 900 of his firm's 3,000 Roundup clients initially intended to opt out, but reconsidered after the Supreme Court sided with Monsanto in June — a measure of how Durnell has already changed claimants' calculations.
Thursday's verdict is likely to push those calculations further in the same direction. If the surviving theories cannot win at trial, the settlement — even one some lawyers consider too low — starts to look like the safer route for many claimants. Conversely, if the settlement is rejected by the judge, Bayer will face the prospect of litigating thousands of cases one by one, with Thursday's verdict as its template and its warning to plaintiffs alike.
There is a wider legal significance too. Durnell turned on FIFRA's uniformity clause, but similar labelling-preemption provisions exist in other federal statutes, covering medical devices, meat and poultry inspection, and other regulated products. How courts apply Durnell beyond pesticides — and how juries treat the claims that survive it — will shape product-liability litigation well beyond weedkiller.
The immediate next step is Judge Boyer's ruling on the $7.25 billion settlement. No date has been reported for that decision, but the September 14 final approval hearing means a ruling could come at any time. If approved, most of the remaining claims would be channelled into the settlement's tiered compensation structure. If rejected, Bayer and the plaintiffs' firms return to a landscape of individual trials, appeals and negotiation — with Thursday's verdict as the new starting point for both sides' risk assessments.
The EPA's glyphosate re-evaluation, expected by the end of 2026, is the other looming milestone. A fresh agency determination could affect future labelling, future litigation and the regulatory consensus Bayer relies on. For now, the EPA's existing position — glyphosate not likely to be carcinogenic, no cancer warning required — stands, and it is the foundation of both the Durnell ruling and Bayer's trial defence.
For the Aretino plaintiffs, the options now include appeal, though any appeal would face the same post-Durnell headwinds that shaped the trial. For the tens of thousands of other claimants, the practical question is simpler: take the settlement if it is approved, or gamble on a trial system that has just delivered its first post-Durnell verdict — unanimously, for Bayer.
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The jury unanimously ruled for Bayer-owned Monsanto, rejecting design defect, fraud and negligence claims by Theresa Aretino, Cynthia Fernandez and Betty Larkin, who said regular Roundup use caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The Supreme Court ruled on June 25, 2026, in Monsanto v. Durnell that FIFRA preempts state failure-to-warn claims requiring a cancer warning the EPA has not required. The Aretino trial, which opened September 29, was the first to go to a jury on the theories that remained after that ruling.
About 65,000 claims remain in US state and federal courts, on top of roughly 100,000 claims resolved by an earlier settlement of about $10 billion to $11 billion around 2020.
Announced in February 2026, it would resolve nearly all existing and future Roundup cancer claims through tiered payouts, reported at $10,000 to $165,000 depending on age at diagnosis and severity of illness. A Missouri judge held a final approval hearing on September 14, 2026, and has not yet ruled.
No — a jury verdict decides a specific case on its evidence, not the science as a whole. Bayer and the EPA say glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic; the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified it as probably carcinogenic in 2015, and the EPA is conducting a fresh review due by the end of 2026.
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