CVN screenshot of defense attorney Mike Brown of Nelson Mullins delivering his closing statement
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ground-shaking decision ruling failure-to-warn claims related to Monsanto’s popular Roundup herbicide in state court are preempted by federal law, and the underlying trial which set up that historic ruling is available as part of Courtroom View Network’s online trial video library.
The Supreme Court issued their 7-2 ruling on June 25 overturning the $1.25 million awarded to plaintiff John Durnell in Missouri state court in 2023. The high court’s majority determined the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts state law failure-to-warn claims, which often played a key role in lawsuits claiming exposure to the chemical glyphosate in herbicides like Roundup supposedly causes cancer.
It was a long road from state court Judge Timothy Boyer’s St. Louis, Missouri courtroom to the U.S. Supreme Court, and a CVN subscription provides a front row seat to the trial that served as the basis for one of the most consequential high court opinions of the 21st century. New subscribers can use CVN’s Summer Special discount for unlimited on-demand access to the Durnell case, along with other Roundup trials and hundreds more cases in a wide range of practice areas in the world’s only online trial video library.
When the City of St. Louis jury first returned their verdict in the Durnell case plaintiff attorneys greeted it as welcome news, with the $1.25 million award ending a string of nine consecutive trial victories in lawsuits involving Monsanto’s popular herbicide.
At the time, the verdict also marked the first instance a Missouri jury, in a courthouse just miles from Monsanto’s former US headquarters, returned a plaintiff verdict in a Roundup trial, and the first time any jury had done so to date outside of California.
Bayer promised an appeal at the time, likely not knowing this specific case would render failure-to-warn claims in thousands of other Roundup lawsuits moot along with likely impacting future mass tort litigation in state court involving products like pesticides and other herbicides.
Attorney T. Roe Frazer of Frazer Plc, who represented plaintiff John Durnell, told CVN after the trial while $1.25 million is smaller than awards in other Roundup trials that it came in the context of no settlement offer from Monsanto at all leading up to and during trial.
He also added that the verdict carries additional significance because it was the first time jurors heard arguments involving supposed carcinogens in Roundup besides glyphosate, the chemical that played a central role in other Roundup trials to date. (CVN’s gavel-to-gavel coverage includes all expert witness testimony).
CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney T. Roe Frazer delivering his closing argument
At the time, Bayer issued a statement referencing the appeal which would eventually evolve into the opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh that effectively end failure-to-warn lawsuits in state courts for thousands of Roundup plaintiffs and potentially countless more in other similar cases.
“The jury’s verdict is mostly in the company’s favor, and we will seek an appeal of the adverse decision on the one count, which relates to product labelling, and which is inconsistent with the conclusions of expert regulators worldwide and preempted by federal law,” the company stated in 2023. “While we have great sympathy for the plaintiff in this case, we are confident that our products can be used safely and are not carcinogenic, consistent with the assessments of expert regulators worldwide and the weight of the extensive body of scientific evidence from more than four decades of studies.”
At trial Durnell was also represented by W. Wylie Blair of Onder Law and Isaac Conner of Manson Johnson Conner.
Monsanto was also represented by Shayna Cook of Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum and Booker Shaw of Thompson Coburn.
The underlying state court case is captioned John L. Durnell, et al. v. Monsanto Company, et al., case number 1922-CC00221 in Missouri’s 22nd Judicial Circuit in St. Louis.
E-mail David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com
