A Roundup lawsuit is a personal injury claim alleging that exposure to the glyphosate-based weed killer caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma or a related lymphocytic cancer. About 60,000 to 65,000 of these claims are still active in 2026.1Drugwatch. Roundup Lawsuit A proposed $7.25 billion class action settlement, preliminarily approved by a Missouri state court on March 4, 2026, would resolve current and future cancer claims with individual payments ranging from roughly $6,000 to $165,000, with a final approval hearing set for July 9, 2026.2Chemical & Engineering News. Bayer Roundup Glyphosate Cancer Class Action Lawsuit Settlement A U.S. Supreme Court decision expected by early July 2026 could reshape whether failure-to-warn claims against Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, remain viable at all.
Who Can File a Roundup Claim
The proposed class settlement covers anyone in the United States who was exposed to Roundup or another glyphosate-based herbicide before February 17, 2026, and who has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma or a related lymphocytic cancer. Immigration status does not affect eligibility, and claims can be filed on behalf of a deceased family member. People diagnosed in the future have up to 16 years after the settlement’s final approval to come forward.3The Hill. $7.25B Settlement Over Roundup Weed Killers: Who Qualifies and How Much You Could Receive
The cancers at the center of the litigation are non-Hodgkin lymphoma and specific subtypes: diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma, marginal zone lymphoma, and several T-cell lymphomas. Some advocates have suggested glyphosate may cause other cancers, but no studies have emerged supporting those claims, and the litigation has focused on NHL and closely related lymphocytic cancers.4Seeger Weiss. Roundup Lawsuit
How Much the Settlement Pays
Individual payouts are determined by a nine-tier system that weighs the claimant’s age at diagnosis, the type of cancer (fast-growing or slow-growing), and whether exposure was occupational or residential.5Drugwatch. Roundup Settlements
Workers with more than 80 hours of job-related Roundup exposure who earned most of their income from that work can receive between $60,000 and $165,000. Residential users typically fall into average awards of $20,000 to $40,000, with faster “quick pay” options of $7,700 to $14,500 available for people who want quicker disbursement. Claimants aged 78 or older receive about $10,000 regardless of exposure type.3The Hill. $7.25B Settlement Over Roundup Weed Killers: Who Qualifies and How Much You Could Receive Bayer plans to fund the settlement through annual payments spread over 17 to 21 years and does not admit liability under the deal.6Bayer. Monsanto Announces Roundup Class Settlement Agreement to Resolve Current and Future Claims
For comparison, Bayer’s earlier wave of settlements, announced in June 2020 at about $10.9 billion, resolved roughly 100,000 individual claims. Lawyers estimated the average individual payout at that time at around $150,000 per plaintiff.7ConsumerNotice.org. Roundup Lawsuits
Key Deadlines
The official site for the proposed class settlement is WeedKillerClass.com. As of mid-2026 the claims portal is not yet active, because the Missouri court has not granted final approval. Once it does, people already diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma will have 180 days from final approval to register, and another 180 days after all appeals are resolved to file a claim. People diagnosed later have six years from the date of their diagnosis to file. Anyone who does not file a claim receives nothing.8WeedKillerClass.com. Weed Killer Class Settlement
The window to opt out and keep an individual lawsuit alive closed on June 4, 2026.2Chemical & Engineering News. Bayer Roundup Glyphosate Cancer Class Action Lawsuit Settlement Bayer reserved the right to walk away from the settlement if too many plaintiffs opt out.9Lawsuit Information Center. Roundup Lawsuit The final approval hearing is scheduled for July 9, 2026.
The Supreme Court Case That Could Change Everything
The single biggest variable sitting over Roundup litigation is Monsanto Company v. Durnell. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 27, 2026, and a decision is expected by early July 2026.10SCOTUSblog. Monsanto Company v. Durnell
The case comes out of a Missouri trial where a jury awarded plaintiff John Durnell $1.25 million after finding Monsanto failed to warn that Roundup could cause cancer. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed, ruling that Monsanto had not shown “clear evidence” the EPA would have rejected a cancer warning on the label.11SCOTUSblog. Justices to Consider Relationship Between Federal and State Rules for Cancer Warnings on Pesticides The question before the justices is whether FIFRA, the federal pesticide labeling law, preempts state failure-to-warn claims when the EPA has already approved a label without a cancer warning. The U.S. Solicitor General sided with Bayer, arguing states cannot “second-guess or undermine” the EPA registration process.12Chemical & Engineering News. Monsanto Durnell Supreme Court Roundup Glyphosate
Industry analysts say that a ruling for Bayer would make failure-to-warn claims essentially unviable and could dismantle much of the remaining litigation. A ruling for the plaintiff would leave the current framework intact, meaning state juries can continue to hold the manufacturer accountable for inadequate labels.12Chemical & Engineering News. Monsanto Durnell Supreme Court Roundup Glyphosate For claimants weighing the settlement against going it alone, the outcome affects what an independent lawsuit is realistically worth.
Why Some Lawyers Are Fighting the Settlement
Not everyone representing cancer patients supports the deal. Attorneys for nearly 20,000 potential class members filed a motion to intervene in late February 2026, arguing that the class definition and the release of liability are “breathtakingly broad.”2Chemical & Engineering News. Bayer Roundup Glyphosate Cancer Class Action Lawsuit Settlement In May 2026, objectors filed formal challenges in both Missouri state court and federal court, calling the settlement unconstitutional, saying it violates due process, and describing its opt-out procedures as “draconian.” They also said the deal amounts to a “liability-management scheme” that benefits Bayer and the class counsel, who stand to receive $675 million in fees.13Reuters. Bayer’s $7.25 Billion Roundup Settlement Faces Court Objections
Judge Vince Chhabria, who oversees the federal multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California, publicly criticized the Missouri settlement during an April 2026 hearing, calling it “filthy” and “legally problematic” and questioning the secretive process by which class counsel got preliminary approval. He declined to step in, saying the issues were for Missouri appellate courts or the Supreme Court to resolve.14The New Lede. US Judge Calls Proposed Bayer Roundup Settlement a ‘Filthy Deal’
Prior Settlements and Trial Verdicts
Before this year’s class settlement proposal, Bayer had already paid roughly $11 billion to resolve about 100,000 individual claims.7ConsumerNotice.org. Roundup Lawsuits Jury verdicts in cases that went to trial have been far larger, though courts have reduced most of them on appeal.
- Dewayne Johnson (2018): The first Roundup case to reach trial produced a $289 million jury award. The trial judge cut it to $78.5 million, and the California Court of Appeal reduced it further to $20.5 million in July 2020 while affirming Monsanto’s liability.15NBC Bay Area. SF Appeals Court Upholds Verdict in Monsanto Roundup Case, Cuts Award to $20.5M
- Edwin Hardeman (2019): $80 million jury verdict, reduced to roughly $25 million by the trial court.16Penn State Ag Law. Review of Litigation Against Monsanto Regarding the Safety of Glyphosate
- Alva and Alberta Pilliod (2019): Over $2 billion from the jury, cut by the trial court to about $87 million and affirmed by the California Court of Appeal in August 2021.17U.S. Supreme Court. Monsanto Co. v. Pilliod, Certiorari Extension Application
- Philadelphia verdict (2024): $2.25 billion, later reduced by the court to $400 million.9Lawsuit Information Center. Roundup Lawsuit
- John Barnes (2025): A Georgia jury awarded nearly $2.1 billion, including $2 billion in punitive damages. Bayer settled the case in November 2025.18CNN. Bayer Monsanto to Pay $2 Billion Roundup19Law360. Monsanto Settles $2.1B Roundup Cancer Case in Georgia
The pattern across trials is consistent. Juries have found Monsanto liable and awarded very large sums; appellate courts and post-trial motions have cut those sums significantly, usually by trimming punitive damages the courts considered constitutionally excessive.
Why These Lawsuits Exist
The litigation sits on top of a scientific disagreement. In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” after reviewing roughly 1,000 studies, citing limited evidence of occupational exposure linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, sufficient evidence of cancer in animals, and strong evidence of genotoxicity.20IARC. IARC News – Glyphosate The U.S. EPA has consistently taken the opposite position, saying “glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”21EPA. Glyphosate In 2022, the Ninth Circuit vacated the EPA’s 2020 interim registration review, finding the agency’s human health assessment contradictory because it denied that glyphosate could cause cancer while conceding it could not reach a conclusion on glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.22Center for Food Safety. Pesticide Preemption and Cancer Warning Analysis The EPA has not yet completed its new final registration review.
Internal Monsanto documents unsealed during pretrial discovery, often called the Monsanto Papers, became powerful evidence in the early trials. Emails showed Monsanto had ghostwritten scientific research later attributed to outside academics. In one exchange, a Monsanto executive suggested the company could “keep the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just sign their names,” referring to a 2000 review article concluding Roundup posed no health risk. That paper was retracted in November 2025 after the ghostwriting was exposed.23Retraction Watch. Glyphosate Safety Article Retracted – Elsevier Monsanto Ghostwriting Other documents suggested a senior EPA official had worked to suppress a separate HHS review of glyphosate and had tipped Monsanto off to IARC’s forthcoming classification months before it was published, giving the company time to prepare its response.24The New York Times. Monsanto Roundup Safety Lawsuit
One boundary worth knowing: Bayer removed glyphosate from Roundup products sold for residential use in the U.S. starting in 2023, replacing it with triclopyr, fluazifop, and diquat.25Michigan State University CANR. Not Your Mother’s Roundup Agricultural and professional formulations still contain glyphosate. The litigation and the settlement cover people whose exposure happened before February 17, 2026, not users of the reformulated residential product.