The paraquat lawsuit is a mass tort brought by farmers, landscapers, pesticide applicators, and people who lived near treated fields who say exposure to the herbicide paraquat caused them to develop Parkinson’s disease. More than 6,600 cases are consolidated in a federal multidistrict litigation in the Southern District of Illinois, and roughly 1,843 more are pending in a Philadelphia mass tort program as of mid-2026.1Motley Rice. Paraquat Lawsuit The main defendants are Syngenta, which manufactured and sold paraquat under the Gramoxone brand, and Chevron, which distributed the chemical in the United States until 1986.2The New Lede. Syngenta Settles Bellwether Trial
What the Lawsuits Claim
The core allegation is that Syngenta and Chevron sold paraquat for decades without warning users it could cause neurological damage, including Parkinson’s disease, and that standard protective equipment like gloves and masks was not enough to eliminate the risk.3Drugwatch. Lawyers Talking About Paraquat Parkinsons Disease Plaintiffs point to research showing paraquat crosses the blood-brain barrier and destroys the dopaminergic neurons that deteriorate in Parkinson’s patients, and to a 2024 UCLA study that found people who worked within 500 meters of paraquat application sites had up to twice the risk of developing the disease.4Science. EPA Will Soon Rule on Weed Killer That May Cause Parkinson’s Disease
Both companies deny their products cause Parkinson’s. Syngenta has said “there is no credible evidence of a connection” between the herbicide and the illness, and Chevron argues it should not be in the litigation at all because it stopped distributing paraquat four decades ago.5The New Lede. Syngenta Settles Bellwether Trial A third defendant, FMC Corporation, has been named in roughly 1,100 Philadelphia cases but says it never registered a paraquat product in the United States.6U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. FMC Corporation SEC Filing
Who Can File a Paraquat Claim
Eligibility is not limited to people who personally sprayed the herbicide. Potential claimants include agricultural workers, landscapers, licensed pesticide applicators, transporters, and residents who lived near farmland where paraquat was applied.7Trivent Legal. Paraquat Lawsuits
Two things are essential: a confirmed diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, and evidence tying that diagnosis to a period of paraquat exposure. Family members can file on behalf of a deceased relative. Having been part of a prior pesticide-related lawsuit does not disqualify someone from bringing a paraquat claim.7Trivent Legal. Paraquat Lawsuits
Where the Cases Stand
Federal cases were consolidated in June 2021 before Chief Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel in the Southern District of Illinois as MDL No. 3:21-md-3004.8Swissinfo. American Farmers Pursue Syngenta Over Herbicide’s Link to Parkinson’s Disease The MDL now holds 6,651 pending cases. The parallel Philadelphia mass tort before Judge Joshua Roberts holds another 1,843, and one accounting puts the total number of lawsuits filed against Syngenta across all jurisdictions at more than 8,000.2The New Lede. Syngenta Settles Bellwether Trial
No paraquat case has ever reached a jury verdict. Every case set for trial has settled first. Before the MDL was even fully running, Syngenta paid $187.5 million in 2021 to resolve a group of pre-MDL claims on the eve of trial, and separately settled 16 California state cases that year on undisclosed terms.9The New Lede. Syngenta Moving to Settle Thousands of Lawsuits Claiming Paraquat Causes Parkinson’s Disease10Motley Rice. Paraquat Lawsuit Settlement Syngenta said that payment was made “solely for the purpose of bringing to an end these claims” and considered the allegations meritless.8Swissinfo. American Farmers Pursue Syngenta Over Herbicide’s Link to Parkinson’s Disease
The most recent trial-eve settlement came in Philadelphia. Bill Mertens, a 77-year-old former landscaper diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2021 after mixing and spraying paraquat through the 1980s and 1990s, was set to begin a bellwether trial on January 28, 2026. Syngenta settled the night before jury selection on undisclosed terms.2The New Lede. Syngenta Settles Bellwether Trial
The Global Settlement Framework and Tier Amounts
On April 14, 2025, lead plaintiff counsel Khaldoun Baghdadi told the MDL court that Syngenta and plaintiffs’ leadership had signed a letter agreement “intended to resolve” the litigation. At the time, more than 5,800 lawsuits were pending in the federal MDL, with over 450 more in California and others scattered in state courts. The deal was built for the MDL but could extend to plaintiffs outside it.9The New Lede. Syngenta Moving to Settle Thousands of Lawsuits Claiming Paraquat Causes Parkinson’s Disease Judge Rosenstengel stayed case-specific discovery in May 2025, and has extended the stay multiple times since; on September 29, 2025, the court vacated the existing trial date.11U.S. District Court, Southern District of Illinois. Paraquat MDL Order Extending Stay
Final terms have not been publicly disclosed. Plaintiffs’ attorneys have described a three-tier structure keyed to the severity of the illness and the strength of the medical and exposure evidence:
- Tier I: $400,000 to $1 million or more, for the most severe cases with the strongest documentation.
- Tier II: $150,000 to $300,000.
- Tier III: $20,000 to $150,000.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers have estimated the average settlement will land in the $600,000 to $900,000 range, while acknowledging the MDL average may run lower because the federal docket includes weaker claims. Individual payouts are assigned through a points system weighing diagnosis severity and proof of exposure.12Lawsuit Information Center. Paraquat Lawsuit Settlement Amount
In April 2026, Judge Rosenstengel ordered settlement administrators to turn over detailed data for every case to Special Master Randi Ellis, including tier assignments, dollar offers, and reasons any claimant had declined or not yet decided. Ellis was directed to meet personally with plaintiffs who had opted out or remained undecided and report back within 90 days.13AboutLawsuits.com. Information on Paraquat Settlement Offers and Special Master MDL Judge Orders The MDL docket shows no upcoming proceedings or deadlines, and a January 2026 status conference was canceled. The most recent court activity was a February 2026 order on voluntary dismissals, which indicates some plaintiffs are resolving claims individually while broader negotiations continue.14U.S. District Court, Southern District of Illinois. Paraquat Products Liability Litigation
Why Settlement Instead of Trial: The 2024 Expert Ruling
The pivot toward settlement came after a serious blow to the plaintiffs’ case. In April 2024, Judge Rosenstengel excluded the testimony of Dr. Martin Wells, the plaintiffs’ sole expert on general causation, after a four-day hearing on his methodology. The court found Wells had “reverse engineered” his analysis to a predetermined conclusion, calling his approach “methodological shape-shifting” and “virtually non-falsifiable.”15Jones Day. Chevron Secures Significant Wins in Paraquat Multidistrict Litigation Wells had run a meta-analysis of seven studies, then switched to a different analytical approach in his rebuttal, and admitted his selection process could not be objectively replicated.16Faegre Drinker. Expert’s Results-Driven Methodology Leads to Exclusion and Summary Judgment in Paraquat MDL
Without an admissible expert on general causation, plaintiffs could not sustain their claims. The court granted summary judgment to Syngenta and Chevron and dismissed the first four bellwether cases, those of Richter, Fuller, Burgener, and Coward, with prejudice.17U.S. District Court, Southern District of Illinois. Order of Dismissal in Paraquat MDL Plaintiffs’ counsel began preparing new general causation experts; as of mid-2026, those experts were reportedly “being worked up,” with no names publicly disclosed and no fresh challenges yet reported.18Nigh Goldenberg. Paraquat Lawsuit The exclusion ruling is the main reason the MDL shifted toward a negotiated resolution rather than continuing to trial.
The Pennsylvania State Court Track
The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas runs a separate paraquat mass tort program under Judge Roberts, with Syngenta, Chevron, and FMC as defendants. That track got a jurisdictional boost in October 2025 when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC v. Nemeth, leaving in place the “consent-by-registration” theory that lets out-of-state companies be sued in Pennsylvania.1Motley Rice. Paraquat Lawsuit
Plaintiffs’ attorneys have suggested that cases in the Philadelphia program carry higher average settlement projections than those in the federal MDL, and some claimants whose injuries or diagnoses fall outside the MDL settlement framework are pursuing their cases there instead.1Motley Rice. Paraquat Lawsuit19The New Lede. An Angry Judge
Regulation, Bans, and Syngenta’s Exit from Production
None of the regulatory developments around paraquat resolve the lawsuits, but they shape the environment the cases sit in. In August 2021, the EPA issued an interim registration review decision that imposed new safety restrictions on paraquat but did not ban it.20Federal Register. Pesticide Registration Review Interim Decision for Paraquat Dichloride A Ninth Circuit challenge by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, Pesticide Action Network, and Farmworker Justice remains in abeyance while the EPA gathers additional field volatility data from manufacturers. The agency’s current reassessment does not include a reevaluation of the Parkinson’s evidence.21Civil Eats. The EPA Is Not Starting a New Review of Paraquat
Vermont became the first state to ban paraquat when Governor Phil Scott signed H.739 on May 26, 2026. The law requires a state permit for paraquat use starting November 1, 2026, and prohibits all sale and use by the end of 2030.22Vermont General Assembly. H.739 Bill Status23Safety and Health Magazine. Vermont Finalizes Landmark Ban of Paraquat At least 13 other states were weighing restrictions in early 2026, and paraquat has been banned in 74 countries, including China, Brazil, South Korea, and Nigeria.24Environmental Working Group. Syngenta Exits Paraquat Production, Other Manufacturers Will Continue25WUFT. The Global Paraquat Trail About 11 million pounds of paraquat are still used annually in the United States on corn, soybeans, cotton, orchards, and vineyards, according to 2018 U.S. Geological Survey data.21Civil Eats. The EPA Is Not Starting a New Review of Paraquat
In March 2026, Syngenta announced it would end global paraquat production by the end of June 2026, closing its sole remaining facility in Huddersfield, United Kingdom. The company cited “significant competition from generic producers,” said paraquat accounts for less than 1 percent of its global sales, and did not cite the litigation as a reason.26Syngenta. Syngenta to Cease Paraquat Production Advocacy groups noted the practical effect is limited: paraquat is a generic active ingredient, more than 750 companies worldwide are registered to sell it, and Syngenta could continue selling paraquat-based products by sourcing the chemical elsewhere.24Environmental Working Group. Syngenta Exits Paraquat Production, Other Manufacturers Will Continue The Michael J. Fox Foundation urged Syngenta and parent company Sinochem to stop all U.S. sales and voluntarily cancel their EPA registrations.27Michael J. Fox Foundation. What Syngenta’s Decision to End Paraquat Production Means for Parkinson’s Risk
For anyone with a Parkinson’s diagnosis and a history of paraquat exposure, the practical picture in 2026 is this: the federal MDL is in a settlement posture with a tiered framework but no finalized global deal, Philadelphia remains an active alternative forum with higher projected values, and the filing window remains open while administrators work through the existing docket.