A Missouri Circuit Court jury in St. Louis on Thursday, October 29, returned a unanimous verdict in favour of Monsanto in the case of Theresa Aretino, et al. v. Monsanto Company, the first Roundup herbicide trial to reach a jury since the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Monsanto v. Durnell in June 2026.

Source: Bayer / Monsanto statement, Oct. 29, 2026

The jury found for Monsanto on every claim the three plaintiffs pursued at trial — design defect, fraud and negligence. Reuters, reporting the verdict, named the plaintiffs as Theresa Aretino, Cynthia Fernandez and Betty Larkin, three women who said they developed cancer after using the Roundup herbicide and who first filed suit against Monsanto in St. Louis in 2020.

Source: Reuters reporting carried by MarketScreener / EL7

The case looked very different from the Roundup trials of earlier years because of what was missing from it. The plaintiffs' failure-to-warn claims — for years the central theory in the Roundup litigation, arguing that Monsanto should have warned users that glyphosate could cause cancer — were no longer available after the Supreme Court's Durnell decision preempted them, so the St. Louis trial was fought only over design defect, fraud and negligence.

What the Supreme Court decided in Durnell

In June 2026 — Bayer dates the ruling to June 25 — the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Monsanto's favour in Durnell, affirming that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) expressly preempts state-law claims based on failure-to-warn theories when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made a definitive determination on product safety. Bayer says the Aretino verdict is the first time a court has tested whether the remaining design-defect and negligence claims can succeed at trial in the post-Durnell landscape — and on this evidence, a jury said they could not.

"We are pleased with the jury's favorable verdict for Monsanto validating our belief that there is no evidence to prove design defect, fraud or negligence claims in the Roundup litigation," said Bill Dodero, the company's U.S. General Counsel and Global Head of Litigation. "This verdict should send a strong signal that plaintiffs who wish to pursue claims in the court system following the Durnell ruling will face significant challenges both in demonstrating they have viable claims and putting forth the necessary evidence to prove them in court."

The science dispute behind the lawsuits

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is one of the most studied farm chemicals in the world. Bayer's position, restated after the verdict, is that the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence and the consensus of regulators worldwide support the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides when used as directed, and that the U.S. EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic and has consistently approved Roundup labels carrying no cancer warning. The tens of thousands of plaintiffs in the wider litigation allege the opposite — that exposure to the herbicide caused their cancers — and those allegations, not any finding of this jury about individual medical causation in other cases, are what keep the remaining claims alive.

Why one St. Louis verdict matters far beyond Missouri

According to Reuters reporting in September, Bayer still faces about 65,000 Roundup claims in U.S. courts. Separately, in February 2026 Monsanto announced a proposed class settlement funded with up to $7.25 billion, including declining annual payments capped over a period of up to 21 years. That plan is still awaiting final court approval: a Missouri court held a hearing on it on September 14, and Bayer has announced no date for the decision. Thursday's verdict does not decide the settlement's fate — but it strengthens Monsanto's hand in arguing that claimants who opt to fight on in court now face a much harder road after Durnell.

For farm communities — including the Punjabi-origin farmers and farmworkers of California's Central Valley, where glyphosate-based weed control is a routine part of orchard, vineyard and row-crop work — the ruling matters in a practical way too: the legal fight over Roundup is shifting away from warning labels, which federal law now largely controls, and toward whether the product's design itself can be challenged state by state. Bayer shares traded in the U.S. closed at $13.37 on October 29, up from $12.80 the previous day, according to the Reuters market report.

What happens next

The next decision directly tied to the Roundup litigation is the Missouri court's ruling on final approval of the $7.25 billion class settlement, for which no date has been announced. The Aretino plaintiffs have made no public announcement about an appeal in the reports of the verdict, and Monsanto says it will continue to defend its glyphosate-based herbicides in the remaining litigation. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when the settlement decision lands.