Overview
The Supreme Court's decision in Monsanto v. Durnell confirms that content of EPA-approved labeling reflects binding federal requirements that cannot be displaced by state-law failure-to-warn claims. At issue in that case was whether Monsanto, manufacturer and distributor of Roundup, needed to provide a cancer-warning on its products to avoid state tort-law failure-to-warn claims when the Environmental Protection Agency had determined that the active ingredient was not likely to cause cancer in humans. A deep and persistent circuit split arose on the question, as courts reached differing conclusions on whether the EPA's labelling requirements under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) preempted state failure-to-warn claims.
For nearly a decade, Steptoe LLP has represented CropLife America in connection with this closely watched litigation, including filing influential amicus briefs in multiple circuit courts and the US Supreme Court. CropLife America’s members are deeply invested in the discovery and development of new pesticide products and product uses. The EPA makes its registration decisions based on a thorough review of current scientific and technical information provided by manufacturers at significant cost to those manufacturers. In Durnell, our briefing discussed this significant investment and the extensive scientific review process to obtain approval for a product’s warning labels. Once approved, the manufacturer of a pesticide cannot change the label without further EPA review and approval. As CropLife America consistently argued—in briefs that informed multiple courts' analysis, including now the US Supreme Court's—those labels are federal requirements for the purposes of preemption. Uniquely situated at the intersection of science, regulation, and appellate litigation, this issue required careful handling and a nuanced approach from the Steptoe team, which included Shannen Coffin, Conor Tucker, and Riley John.
