Class Actions Brief Blog

Monsanto and its parent Bayer recently announced that they had reached a proposed class action settlement to resolve most claims alleging Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) caused by exposure to Roundup weed killer. See King v. Monsanto, No. 2622-CC00325 (Mo. Circ. Ct. Feb. 17, 2026). Over 52,000 Roundup claims based on NHL involving over 125,000 plaintiffs have been filed since 2015. The new settlement (proposed under Missouri’s analogue to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3)) would require Monsanto to make $7.25 billion in total payments over a 16-year period. The details of this settlement provide insight into what plaintiffs and defendants believe can be accomplished under current law through mass tort class action settlements.

Background of the Settlement

The settlement was informed by two important events in the Roundup litigation. First, the U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether Roundup-based state-law tort claims are preempted by federal law. Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, 607 U.S. __ (2026) (No. 24-1068, 2025 Term). As the advocates of the settlement point out, if the Supreme Court accepts Monsanto’s preemption argument, most of the claims would be dismissed. The class action settlement will not resolve the Supreme Court appeal or be affected by the court’s decision, and therefore represents a hedge by both sides in anticipation of that ruling.

Second, in 2021, a federal court rejected a much less ambitious class action settlement that attempted to resolve just four years of Roundup claims. In re Roundup Products Liab. Litig., 541 F. Supp. 3d 1004 (N.D. Cal. 2021). That settlement would have covered the claims of persons who had already developed disease but had not yet filed suit as well as four years of future claims — that is, claims by individuals who had been exposed to Roundup but who would develop disease during the four-year period.

The federal court principally objected to the bargain that had been struck for the future claimants. Those claimants would have received four years of medical monitoring and the opportunity for a settlement payment if they developed disease within those four years. Those benefits were minimal, according to the court, because the latency period for the disease is at least 10-15 years, meaning many claimants would receive no payment. But in return, claimants would have forever relinquished their right to seek punitive damages (even if they developed disease long after the four-year period). In addition, in any trials after the four-year period, the settlement stipulated to the admissibility of the opinion of a seven-member expert panel on whether Roundup could cause NHL. The court concluded that the waiver of punitive damages and the stipulation on admissibility far outweighed the benefits future claimants received.

A New Approach

The parties to the recent deal appear to have had these problems in mind when crafting a much more comprehensive settlement. Rather than just four years of claims, the settlement addresses all current NHL claims against Monsanto and related parties (with limited exceptions), as well as all claims where individuals have been exposed and will develop NHL within 16 years after approval. The period of the deal appears to relate to the latency period for NHL noted in the federal court opinion.

The settlement class is divided into separate subclasses for current and future claimants, with distinct counsel who presumably negotiated for the respective subclasses. This structure was no doubt an attempt to avoid an adequate-representation problem that could occur if a class contained both current and future claimants with common representation. See Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 626-7 (1997).

Under the settlement, Monsanto would pay $7.25 billion (nominal) over the 16-year period, with the potential for an additional four years of payments if claims remain after 16 years. These funds would be used to compensate claimants through an administrative process. Typical payments would range from $10,000 to $165,000, with claimants receiving more if they are younger, have occupational rather than residential exposure, and have aggressive NHL.

In return, claimants who remain part of the settlement will provide comprehensive releases of Monsanto and related parties. Claimants who do not develop disease until after the 16-year period are relieved of any obligations under the deal at that time.

The deal provides the opportunity for claimants to opt out, as required by the relevant class action rule. But it includes features designed to discourage that. First, claimants must opt out within 90 days after the class notice is given, there are no bulk opt-outs and claimants must personally sign the document. Second, Monsanto can terminate the deal if the opt-outs exceed a certain threshold (the exact threshold has been kept confidential). Third, if there are more than 650 opt-outs and the deal remains in place, Monsanto receives credits against its payment obligations in the amount of at least what the opt-out claimants would have received under the settlement, with the credit increasing as claims move through discovery toward trial. Finally, the deal contemplates that the fee award to class counsel (among the leading plaintiff firms in the litigation) could be reduced or jeopardized if those firms represent or assist opt-out claimants.

The deal provides special rights to future claimants diagnosed during the 16-year period. They have the right (under certain circumstances) to reject the settlement payments and reinstate their tort claims. Even those claimants, however, forever lose their right to seek punitive damages, even if they reject the settlement offer in the future. The deal also attempts to discourage these rejections by providing Monsanto with payment credits after 500 such rejections.

As efforts to obtain approval of the settlement get underway, it will be interesting to monitor the nature of any objections, the level of opt-outs and how both relate to the Supreme Court’s forthcoming preemption decision.