Key Takeaways
- Clarkson Law Firm prepared the amicus curiae brief filed on behalf of U.S. Senator Cory Booker urging the Supreme Court to preserve the right of consumers injured by pesticides to bring failure-to-warn claims in state courts.
- The case, Monsanto Company v. John L. Durnell, could determine whether thousands of non-Hodgkin lymphoma plaintiffs can hold Monsanto accountable under state failure-to-warn laws.
- Monsanto’s preferred outcome — blocking state failure-to-warn claims through federal preemption — is something Congress has considered in various forms and declined to enact at least five times in recent years
On April 1, 2026, Clarkson Law Firm partner Glenn A. Danas, joined by Ryan J. Clarkson, Christen L. Chapman, and Larkin Turner, filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of United States Senator Cory Booker in one of the most consequential tort liability cases in a generation. The brief urges the Supreme Court of the United States to preserve the right of consumers injured by pesticides to bring failure-to-warn claims in state court — and to reject Monsanto’s bid to use federal pesticide labeling law as a complete shield against those claims.
The case, Monsanto Company v. John L. Durnell, No. 24-1068, is submitted to the Supreme Court following oral argument on April 27, 2026.
What’s at Stake in Monsanto v. Durnell
John Durnell is among the thousands of Americans who allege that long-term exposure to Roundup, Monsanto’s flagship herbicide, caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer. Durnell obtained a jury verdict, and Monsanto now asks the Supreme Court to reverse it — not on the facts, but on a structural legal theory: that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) preempts any state-law failure-to-warn claim involving a federally registered pesticide.
If Monsanto prevails on that argument, the consequences extend far beyond a single case. A ruling for Monsanto could eliminate or significantly limit tens of thousands of pending cases brought by cancer patients who allege that the company knew about glyphosate’s risks and chose not to disclose them.
Bayer, Monsanto’s parent company, has already paid over $10 billion to resolve earlier Roundup claims and is pursuing a proposed $7.25 billion settlement to address additional cases. A preemption ruling in the company’s favor would dramatically reshape the litigation landscape going forward.
The Preemption Question Congress Has Repeatedly Declined to Answer
Amicus Senator Booker’s brief, drafted by Clarkson’s appellate team, zeroes in on a fact that cuts to the heart of the case: Monsanto is asking the Supreme Court to hand it something Congress has repeatedly refused to provide.
Over the past three years alone, legislation designed to expand FIFRA’s preemptive reach to cover state tort claims has been introduced in Congress at least five times. The Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act, multiple versions of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act, a House appropriations rider known as Section 453, and the current farm bill each sought, in different forms, to bar state law failure-to-warn claims against pesticide manufacturers. None became law. Section 453 was stripped from a 2026 spending bill following bipartisan opposition.
This pattern of deliberate legislative inaction matters enormously. In our constitutional structure, federal preemption of state law must rest on the intent of Congress — not the advocacy of an industry that has been unable to persuade elected representatives. As Senator Booker urges from his position on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Congress’s repeated refusal to enact FIFRA preemption language was not an oversight. It was a choice.
What FIFRA Actually Does — And Doesn’t Do
A central theme of the brief is that Monsanto fundamentally misconstrues the statute. FIFRA sets a floor for what pesticide manufacturers must do to register their products with the federal government. It does not create a ceiling that bars consumers from seeking accountability under state tort law when a manufacturer fails to disclose known dangers.
Section 136v(a) of FIFRA expressly grants states the authority to regulate pesticides above the federal floor. Section 136v(b) limits states from imposing labeling requirements that differ from federal requirements. However, a jury verdict in a failure-to-warn case does not impose a labeling requirement. It holds a company accountable for the choices it has already made.
The Supreme Court addressed this distinction in Bates v. Dow Agrosciences LLC, 544 U.S. 431 (2005), noting that private state-law remedies that enforce federal misbranding requirements aid rather than undermine the statute’s purpose. Indeed, for decades, state tort claims and FIFRA coexisted, with no one seriously arguing that FIFRA barred such claims.
Why State Courts Serve a Critical Safety Function
FIFRA’s regulatory structure is heavily driven by manufacturers. Companies initiate their own registrations, draft their own labels, and return for reregistration only every fifteen years or when underlying data changes.
Glyphosate’s history illustrates why reregistration matters. Monsanto introduced Roundup in 1974. The EPA initially classified glyphosate as a possible carcinogen in 1985, reversed that classification in 1991, and the compound’s use expanded dramatically through the Roundup Ready crop era of the 1990s and 2000s. Studies linking long-term glyphosate exposure to non-Hodgkin lymphoma began surfacing in the late 2000s. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans.
The science took decades to catch up. State tort claims — and the accountability they create — are what give manufacturers a real-time incentive to disclose newly discovered risks and update their labels without waiting for a regulatory cycle to turn over. Eliminating that accountability, removes the one mechanism capable of keeping consumer safety information current in a manufacturer-controlled system.
Clarkson’s Role
Clarkson’s appellate team prepared the brief on Senator Booker’s behalf, with Glenn A. Danas serving as Counsel of Record alongside Ryan J. Clarkson, Christen L. Chapman, and Larkin Turner.
As CBS News reported, Senator Booker’s filing directly challenges the Trump administration’s position. The Department of Justice filed its own brief siding with Monsanto, arguing that federal regulatory approval of Roundup’s label should displace state-court claims.
Clarkson’s work in this matter reflects the firm’s sustained commitment to appellate advocacy in high-stakes consumer protection and public health litigation. The brief’s arguments — that federal preemption requires congressional intent, that Congress has withheld that intent here, and that state tort law is an indispensable part of FIFRA’s design — now sit before the highest court in the country.
Contact Clarkson Law Firm
Clarkson’s Appeals & Writs team regularly handles amicus briefs for public interest lawsuits in courts at all levels. Contact us to learn more about how we can assist in your case.
The case is Monsanto Company v. John L. Durnell, No. 24-1068, Supreme Court of the United States, argument heard on April 27, 2026.
