Supreme Court Rejects Appeal from Roundup’s Maker

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Bayer AG’s bid to dismiss legal claims by customers who contend its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer as the German company seeks to avoid potentially billions of dollars in damages.

The justices turned away a Bayer appeal and left in place a lower court decision that upheld $25 million in damages awarded to a Roundup user who blamed his cancer on the glyphosate-based weedkillers.

The Supreme Court’s action dealt a blow to Bayer as the company maneuvers to limit its legal liability in thousands of cases. The justices have a second Bayer petition pending on a related issue that they could act upon in the coming weeks.

In a statement Tuesday, Bayer said that it disagrees with the court’s decision not to take its appeal and “is confident that the extensive body of science and consistently favorable views of leading regulatory bodies worldwide provide a strong foundation on which it can successfully defend Roundup in court when necessary.”