US District Judge Edward Autrey said the case was improperly moved to federal court and thus must be sent back to St. Louis.<\/p>\n
The order support efforts by Bayer, the German owner of the former Monsanto Co., to settle tens of thousands of lawsuits brought by people who claim they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) from exposure to Monsanto\u2019s Roundup and other glyphosate herbicides. Bayer has been mired in costly litigation since buying Monsanto in 2018, and has paid out billions of dollars in settlements and jury awards.<\/p>\n
Bayer announced the class action settlement<\/a> in coordination with a group of supporting plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys in February and quickly received preliminary approval from the St. Louis judge. The settlement drew immediate objections from other plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys who have been fighting to kill or alter the deal.<\/p>\n The objecting attorneys and other critics say the structure of the class action settlement is a sweetheart deal that provides a rich payout of\u00a0$675 million in fees<\/a> to the lawyers who put the deal with Bayer together and are helping promote the deal, but provides paltry payments for the cancer sufferers who make up the class. The settlement would include people currently suing the company and also Roundup users who develop NHL in the future.<\/p>\n Moreover, Bayer could continue selling the products without cancer warnings, helping \u201cfree one of the Nation\u2019s most notorious, long-term polluters from jury trials and real liability for their misdeeds,\u201d according to one court filing<\/a> by objectors.<\/p>\n In contrast, the lawyers who put the deal together with Bayer say it is the best path forward for plaintiffs because without the deal the plaintiffs could be caught indefinitely in a backlog of thousands of cases and never receive any compensation. The threat of a company bankruptcy is also a real possibility, the lawyers supporting the deal have warned.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cWe move forward and will not stop until every Roundup victim who has waited far too long finally gets the justice they deserve.\u201d \u2013 Christopher Seeger, plaintiffs\u2019 attorney<\/p>\n One of those lawyers, Christopher Seeger, criticized the objecting plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys for interfering in the deal, issuing a statement following the June 17 order returning the case to St. Louis.<\/p>\n \u201cThese objectors \u2026 have thrown every procedural obstacle they could find at a $7.25 billion settlement, one of the largest class recoveries in US history,\u201d Seeger said. \u201cWe move forward and will not stop until every Roundup victim who has waited far too long finally gets the justice they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n Bayer issued a statement following the court order, saying the \u201cdecision brings much needed clarity to all parties and will enable the class approval process to continue to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMonsanto remains confident that the class settlement, which is supported by plaintiffs\u2019 counsel representing tens of thousands of potential class members, is fair to all parties and the objections have no merit,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n But Ashley Keller, one of the attorneys objecting to the class action settlement and the one who got the case removed from St. Louis City to federal court last month, immediately filed an appeal<\/a> of the order.<\/p>\n Keller hopes to keep the case in federal court, because the federal judge overseeing the Roundup \u201cmultidistrict\u201d litigation since 2016 has publicly stated his disapproval of the settlement, calling it a \u201cfilthy\u201d deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n Along with Keller, several other plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers representing Roundup plaintiffs are on record with their objections<\/a> to the class action settlement. Objections have been lodged on behalf of people who are currently suing the company over cancer claims, as well as a \u201cfutures class\u201d<\/a> of people who do not currently have cancer but may develop it in the future only to find their legal options restricted by the terms of the settlement.<\/p>\n Even though someone with Roundup exposure might not show NHL symptoms until a years from now, and even if that person has strong evidence that Roundup exposure caused the cancer, if that person did not opt out of the proposed settlement by June 4 of this year, that person would be \u201cbound by the Settlement\u2019s terms from now into the 2040s,\u201d objecting attorneys stated in a recent court filing.<\/a><\/p>\n In a separate strategy aimed at ending the Roundup litigation, Bayer has asked the US Supreme Court to rule that it should be protected from lawsuits alleging it failed to warn Roundup users of a cancer risk.<\/p>\n The company argues that under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, juries in state courts cannot hold the company liable for failing to warn of a cancer risk if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not found such a risk exists and has not required such a warning. The EPA\u2019s position is that glyphosate is \u201cunlikely\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to be carcinogenic.<\/p>\n The court heard arguments in the case in April.<\/a> A ruling is expected any day.<\/p>\n Featured image by\u00a0Yunus Tu\u011f<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Unsplash+<\/a><\/p>\n Carey Gillam is the editor-in-chief of The New Lede and a veteran investigative journalist with more than 30 years of experience covering US news, including 17 years as a senior correspondent with Reuters international news service (1998-2015). She is the author of \u201cWhitewash – The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science,\u201d an expose of Monsanto\u2019s corporate corruption of agriculture. The book won the coveted Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists in 2018. Her second book, a narrative legal thriller titled The Monsanto Papers, was released March 2, 2021.<\/p>\n She also has contributed chapters for a text book about environmental journalism and a book about pesticide use in Africa.<\/p>\n Gillam testified as an invited expert before the European Parliament in 2017 about her research, and was a featured speaker at the World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg, France in 2019. She also has been a keynote and\/or panel speaker at events and universities throughout North America, Australia, The Netherlands, Brussels, and France.<\/p>\n Gillam writes regularly for The Guardian. Her work has additionally been published in The New York Times, Huffington Post, Time, and other outlets.<\/p>\n In 2022, Gillam helped launch The New Lede as a journalism initiative of the Environmental Working Group.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/d965a5f00dc2926d3e1db62785355506aa08855e680fee890c5b0b962839d961.png\")
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Gillam is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.<\/p>\n