Roundup Trial Verdict: Monsanto Wins Aretino, the First Jury Test of Design Defect Claims After Durnell

Monsanto wins the first Roundup trial verdict since Durnell

The first Roundup trial verdict since the Supreme Court eliminated cancer-warning claims went to Monsanto: on Thursday, October 29, 2026, a unanimous jury in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Missouri, rejected the design defect, negligence and fraud claims of three women who said Roundup caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The plaintiffs in Aretino, et al. v. Monsanto Co., No. 20SL-CC03676, had asked for $10 million to $30 million each, and they recovered nothing, a result that strengthens Bayer's hand on every Roundup claim left outside its pending $7.25 billion class settlement.

The verdict is the first jury answer to the question the litigation has been asking since June 25, 2026, when Monsanto Co. v. Durnell held that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts state-law claims that Roundup's label should have carried a cancer warning. Durnell left Design Defect, negligence and some fraud theories open. Aretino tested whether a jury would accept those theories without the warning claim that had anchored eight years of Roundup verdicts. This jury did not, and, according to Law.com, it took only hours after closing arguments to say so.

Three audiences will read the result most closely: Judge Timothy Boyer of the City of St. Louis circuit court, who has not yet ruled on final approval of the King v. Monsanto class settlement; Judge Vince Chhabria, who is deciding how much of the federal Roundup Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) survives Durnell; and the plaintiffs' firms that hold the roughly 65,000 Roundup claims Reuters reports are still pending in US state and federal courts. This report covers what the jury decided, why the case was tried the way it was, what the Roundup trial verdict does and does not settle about preemption, and what comes next for the settlement, the MDL and the opt-out inventory.

Who won the first Roundup trial after the Supreme Court's Durnell ruling?

Monsanto, the Bayer AG subsidiary that manufactures Roundup, won the first Roundup trial after Durnell. The jury in Aretino v. Monsanto returned a unanimous defense verdict on October 29, 2026, before Judge Brian May of the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Missouri's 21st Judicial Circuit, about one month after opening statements on September 29.

The forum detail matters. St. Louis County and the City of St. Louis are separate jurisdictions with separate circuit courts. The City of St. Louis (22nd Judicial Circuit) is where John Durnell won his $1.25 million verdict in 2023 and where Judge Boyer is considering the class settlement. The county court, which surrounds the city, is where Aretino was tried. Several wire reports described the result simply as a "St. Louis jury" verdict; the docket prefix "20SL-CC" and Judge May's assignment place it in the county.

Bayer's US general counsel and global head of litigation, Bill Dodero, said in a company statement that Monsanto was pleased with the verdict, and told Reuters the result shows plaintiffs will face "significant challenges" in trying Roundup cases after Durnell. Bloomberg framed the outcome as bolstering Bayer's settlement push. Attorneys for the three plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to wire reports.

What did the jury decide in Aretino v. Monsanto?

The jury found for Monsanto on every claim each plaintiff took to verdict: strict liability design defect, negligence and fraud. Because the verdict was for the defense on liability, the jury never reached compensatory damages or Punitive Damages.

Item	Detail
Case	Theresa Aretino, et al. v. Monsanto Co., No. 20SL-CC03676
Court	Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Missouri (21st Judicial Circuit)
Judge	Brian May
Filed	2020
Openings	September 29, 2026
Verdict	Thursday, October 29, 2026; unanimous, for Monsanto
Plaintiffs	Theresa Aretino, Cynthia Fernandez (deceased before trial), Betty Larkin; all from Florida
Injury alleged	Non-Hodgkin lymphoma after regular Roundup use
Claims tried	Design defect, negligence, fraud
Claims not tried	Failure to Warn (preempted under Durnell)
Damages requested	$10 million to $30 million per plaintiff (up to $90 million total)
Damages awarded	$0
Plaintiffs' lead counsel	Greg Dovel, Dovel & Luner
Monsanto trial counsel	Paul Boehm, Sidley Austin
Settlement status of plaintiffs	Not participating in the $7.25 billion King class settlement

Two features of the verdict deserve emphasis.

It was unanimous. Missouri does not require unanimity in civil cases; under the Missouri Constitution, three-fourths of the jurors (nine of twelve) can return a civil verdict. A 12-0 defense verdict leaves no dissenting jurors for the plaintiffs to point to in arguing that the evidence was closely balanced, and it removes the juror-split narrative that often accompanies new-trial motions.

It was fast. Law.com reported that the jury returned its verdict within hours after closing arguments on Thursday. In a trial that ran a month and involved three plaintiffs with separate exposure and medical histories, a same-day verdict signals that jurors did not find the core liability questions difficult. Speed of deliberation is not itself appealable, but it is information every settlement negotiator will use.

Timeline: from filing to verdict

Date	Event
2020	Aretino, Fernandez and Larkin sue Monsanto in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County
October 2023	City of St. Louis jury awards John Durnell $1.25 million on a warning claim alone
February 2026	Bayer announces the $7.25 billion King v. Monsanto class settlement
March 4, 2026	Judge Boyer grants preliminary approval of the class deal
June 4, 2026	Opt-out deadline; the Aretino plaintiffs remain outside the class
June 25, 2026	Supreme Court decides Durnell, preempting cancer-warning claims
August 31, 2026	Boone County court in Shull holds design and negligence claims survive Durnell
September 14, 2026	Final fairness hearing on the King settlement; decision reserved
September 29, 2026	Opening statements in Aretino
October 29, 2026	Closing arguments and unanimous defense verdict the same day

The sequence shows why the case drew so much attention. The plaintiffs made their opt-out decision while warning claims were still viable, and they reached trial four months after those claims disappeared. Their result is the first evidence of what an opt-out decision made under the old rules is worth under the new ones.

How much money did the Aretino plaintiffs ask for?

Greg Dovel asked the jury to award between $10 million and $30 million to each of the three women, according to Law.com, which puts the total request at up to $90 million; Law360 headlined the verdict as coming "after $90M ask." The jury awarded nothing.

The ask was modest by Roundup standards. Earlier verdicts in the litigation reached nine and ten figures: $289 million in Johnson v. Monsanto in San Francisco in 2018, roughly $2 billion in Pilliod in Alameda County in 2019, $1.56 billion for four plaintiffs in Anderson in Cole County, Missouri, in 2023, and $2.25 billion in McKivison in Philadelphia in 2024, most of them later reduced. Most of those awards rested in whole or in part on warning theories that are now preempted, and several included punitive components. The Aretino request was framed as compensatory-scale money for three individual cancer histories, a calibration that reflected both Durnell and the defense-friendly reputation of the venue. Even that did not persuade the jury.

Why did the plaintiffs only bring design defect, negligence and fraud claims?

Because Durnell took the cancer-warning claim away. In Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, decided 7-2 on June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court held that FIFRA's preemption clause, 7 U.S.C. § 136v(b), bars a state-law failure-to-warn claim premised on the theory that a pesticide label should have included a cancer warning different from or in addition to the label EPA approved. Justice Kavanaugh wrote for the Court; Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Gorsuch, dissented.

The Aretino plaintiffs' remaining theories were built around what Durnell did not decide.

• Design defect. Missouri strict liability asks whether a product, as designed, was unreasonably dangerous when put to a reasonably anticipated use. The plaintiffs argued Roundup's formulation was defective regardless of what the label said. Bates v. Dow Agrosciences LLC, 544 U.S. 431 (2005), said that design and manufacturing duties "plainly do not qualify" as labeling or packaging requirements under § 136v(b), which is why plaintiffs maintain design claims survive.
• Negligence. The negligence theory focused on testing: that a reasonably careful manufacturer would have studied the formulation and found the risk. In openings, Dovel told jurors that "Monsanto did not adequately test Roundup," according to Law.com and Reuters.
• Fraud. Fraud claims in Roundup cases typically rest on alleged concealment or misrepresentation of the science, including ghostwriting and regulatory-influence allegations drawn from internal company documents. After Durnell, a fraud claim is vulnerable to the argument that it is a warning claim in disguise if its premise is what the label should have said. The Aretino fraud claim reached the jury, which rejected it on the merits.

That structure is why the trial mattered beyond three plaintiffs. It was the first time a jury heard a Roundup case stripped of the claim that had been the simplest to win: that Monsanto should have added a warning. A design case asks jurors to conclude that a widely used, federally registered herbicide should not have been sold in its existing form at all, which is a heavier lift.

How the Aretino trial was fought

The plaintiffs: a testing case, not a label case

Dovel's presentation was designed to stay on the right side of the preemption line. Courtroom View Network, which webcast the trial, reported that his opening put far more weight than earlier Roundup openings on the underlying chemistry and testing of glyphosate. He told the jury that EPA's conclusion that glyphosate needs no cancer warning rests on incomplete science and that EPA approval "doesn't mean that it is safe," and he leaned on the agency's ongoing review of glyphosate. Reuters reported that he also accused Monsanto of minimizing troubling test results, ghostwriting scientific papers and engineering regulatory approval, themes that have appeared in Roundup trials since 2018.

The theory had a built-in tension. Many of the corporate-conduct documents that made earlier Roundup juries angry are most naturally framed as evidence that Monsanto knew of a risk and did not disclose it, which is a warning story. Recasting that evidence as proof of a design defect or negligent testing requires jurors to accept that the remedy was a different product, not a different label. The verdict suggests the jury did not make that leap.

Monsanto: regulators already answered the question

Paul Boehm of Sidley Austin argued for Monsanto that the plaintiffs could not show glyphosate-based herbicides are too dangerous to sell, because that claim contradicts decades of safety reviews by EPA and regulators abroad. The defense also contested General Causation, the threshold question whether glyphosate can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma at all, and Specific Causation for each plaintiff, which in a three-plaintiff trial means three separate exposure, latency and medical histories.

Durnell gave Monsanto a structural advantage. In warning cases, plaintiffs could argue that a cheap fix, a sentence on a label, would have let users decide for themselves. In a design case, there is no cheap fix to offer. Monsanto could frame the question as whether a product approved by federal regulators should have been withdrawn from the market, and the jury answered it.

Does the Aretino verdict mean Roundup design defect claims are preempted?

No. The Aretino jury decided the facts against the plaintiffs; it did not decide preemption, and a jury verdict cannot answer a question of federal law. Whether Durnell's reasoning also bars Roundup design defect and negligence claims remains open, and courts are split on how far it reaches.

The defense verdict actually narrows what Monsanto can take up on appeal from this case. Monsanto has argued that design claims are preempted, either because they are relabeled warning claims or because a state duty to sell a different formulation conflicts with EPA registration. Judge May let the design, negligence and fraud claims go to the jury. Because Monsanto won, it has no judgment to appeal, so Aretino will not be the vehicle for an appellate ruling on design-claim preemption unless the plaintiffs appeal and Monsanto raises preemption as an alternative ground to affirm.

Here is where the post-Durnell scorecard stands:

Date	Forum	Case	What happened
June 25, 2026	U.S. Supreme Court	Monsanto Co. v. Durnell	7-2: FIFRA expressly preempts state cancer-warning claims
August 31, 2026	Boone County, Mo., Circuit Court	Shull v. Monsanto	Summary judgment denied; Durnell confined to warning claims; design and negligence claims proceed
October 7, 2026 (reported)	D. Idaho	Hoge v. Monsanto	Failure-to-warn claim dismissed; negligence claim "not wholesale" preempted
October 13, 2026	U.S. Supreme Court	Monsanto Co. v. Dennis	Cert granted, $28 million California judgment vacated and remanded in light of Durnell
October 2026	N.D. Cal., MDL 2741	In re Roundup Products Liability Litigation	Judge Chhabria invites amicus briefs on whether Durnell preempts negligence, design and warranty claims under six states' laws
October 29, 2026	St. Louis County, Mo., Circuit Court	Aretino v. Monsanto	Unanimous defense verdict on design defect, negligence and fraud

Read together, the courts that have ruled on the law have mostly let design and negligence claims proceed, while the only jury to hear them rejected them. That is a meaningful distinction. Plaintiffs still have a legal path; Aretino shows the evidentiary path is harder than the old warning cases.

St. Louis County and the Roundup trial record

Venue explains part of the result. Courtroom View Network reported before trial that St. Louis County had produced defense verdicts in all four Roundup trials held there. Aretino makes it five for five. Plaintiffs' firms that chose the county did so years ago, when the case was filed in 2020; venue choices made before Durnell are now being tried under very different rules.

Nationally, the record is mixed but has tilted toward Monsanto. Settlement Insight, which tracks every Roundup trial since 2018, counts 25 trials that reached a verdict, with Monsanto winning 14 of them, including one directed verdict, and identifies Philadelphia as the most favorable venue for plaintiffs. Those figures are a single tracker's count and should be read as approximate.

Period	Dominant theory	Representative outcomes
2018–2019	Failure to warn plus design	Johnson ($289 million), Hardeman ($80 million), Pilliod (about $2 billion); all reduced
2021–2023	Failure to warn plus design	Monsanto wins a run of trials, including in St. Louis County; Durnell ($1.25 million, warning only) and Anderson ($1.56 billion) in Missouri
2024–2025	Failure to warn plus design	Philadelphia verdicts including McKivison ($2.25 billion, reduced); Monsanto wins several Philadelphia trials
June 2026	—	Durnell preempts cancer-warning claims
October 2026	Design defect, negligence, fraud only	Aretino: unanimous defense verdict, $0

The lesson for case selection is not that design claims cannot win. It is that a design-only Roundup case tried in a defense-leaning venue, with a plaintiff group whose claims were filed before Durnell and framed around warning-era evidence, lost decisively. Future trials in Philadelphia, Cole County or the City of St. Louis would test the theory on different terrain.

How does the verdict affect the $7.25 billion Roundup settlement?

Directly, it does not: the Aretino plaintiffs opted out, so their result has no formal effect on the King v. Monsanto class settlement. Practically, it strengthens Bayer's position on every pressure point that remains before Judge Boyer rules.

Where the settlement stands

The King settlement, announced in February 2026, would have Bayer make capped, declining annual payments for up to 21 years, totaling as much as $7.25 billion, to resolve current and future non-Hodgkin lymphoma claims by people exposed to Roundup. Individual awards under the Settlement Matrix are expected to range from roughly $10,000 to $165,000 depending on exposure, age at diagnosis and severity. Judge Boyer granted preliminary approval on March 4, 2026; the opt-out deadline ran June 4; and the final fairness hearing was held on September 14, 2026, when the judge reserved decision. Reuters reported on October 29 that the settlement remains under review.

Why the verdict matters to approval

Settlement approval turns in part on whether the deal is fair, reasonable and adequate compared with what class members could get by litigating. Each Objector who has argued that the grid undervalues claims has implicitly relied on the premise that individual trials still produce real money after Durnell. Aretino is the first data point on that premise, and it cuts against the objectors.

• The adequacy argument gets easier for Bayer. A $0 result for three opt-outs who asked for up to $90 million is concrete evidence that the litigation alternative to the class deal carries serious risk.
• The futures release looks more defensible. Future claimants, people who have not yet been diagnosed, are the most contested part of the deal. If design-only trials lose, the value of a future claimant's right to sue shrinks, and a guaranteed matrix payment looks comparatively stronger.
• Opt-out revocations make more sense. After Durnell, some claimants who had opted out sought to revoke their opt-outs and rejoin the class. Aretino will encourage others to try, though whether late revocations are allowed is for Judge Boyer and the settlement's terms.

None of this binds the court, and a single verdict in a single venue is a limited sample. But approval decisions are made on the record of risks as they stand, and the record changed on October 29.

What the Aretino verdict means for the federal Roundup MDL

The federal Roundup cases are consolidated in MDL 2741, In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, before Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California. The MDL has shrunk to 1,104 pending actions, according to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation's October 1, 2026 report. In October, Judge Chhabria invited amicus briefs on whether Durnell also preempts negligence, design defect and warranty claims under the laws of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia and Arizona.

Aretino does not bear on that legal question, but it bears on what follows it. Florida is one of the six states in the amicus order, and the Aretino plaintiffs were all from Florida. If Judge Chhabria holds that design and negligence claims under Florida law survive, MDL plaintiffs will be in a position much like the Aretino plaintiffs before trial: a legal path, but no post-Durnell jury win to point to. If he holds them preempted, the MDL contracts further, and plaintiffs who fall within the King class definition, and did not opt out, are left with the matrix.

Either way, a defense verdict in the first post-Durnell trial reduces the leverage MDL plaintiffs' leadership can bring to any remand or individual-settlement negotiation.

Can the Aretino plaintiffs appeal the Roundup verdict?

Yes. Once the trial court enters judgment on the verdict, the plaintiffs can file post-trial motions, including a motion for new trial, within 30 days under Missouri Supreme Court Rule 78.04, and then appeal to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, which hears appeals from St. Louis County. An appeal from a defense verdict typically has to show reversible legal error, such as an erroneous evidentiary ruling or an instruction that misstated Missouri law; arguing that the jury weighed the evidence wrongly rarely succeeds.

The procedural posture creates an unusual dynamic. If the plaintiffs appeal, Monsanto can defend the judgment on any ground supported by the record, which could include its preemption argument. A plaintiffs' appeal could therefore become the vehicle for the appellate ruling on design-claim preemption that Monsanto has been seeking, a risk plaintiffs' counsel will weigh before appealing. No appeal or post-trial motion had been reported as of October 30.

What it means for plaintiffs' firms, Bayer, objectors and funders

The Aretino result is one verdict in one venue, but it lands at a moment when nearly every Roundup decision-maker is resetting value. Its implications, as analysis rather than advice, break down by audience.

Plaintiffs' firms holding opt-out inventory

• Valuation reset. Opt-out claims were priced before Durnell on warning-era verdicts. The first design-only trial produced $0. Firms carrying opt-out inventory on a Contingency Fee basis will need to reassess expected trial value, and with it whether to seek individual settlements, revoke opt-outs where permitted, or wait for Judge Chhabria's ruling and a more favorable venue.
• Case selection. The plaintiffs most likely to succeed on a design or negligence theory are those with strong exposure histories, clean Specific Causation evidence and, ideally, exposure to formulations or surfactants for which an alternative design argument is strongest. Grouping three plaintiffs together multiplies upside but also multiplies causation vulnerabilities.
• Trial themes. Aretino suggests jurors may not translate concealment-style evidence into a design defect finding. Expect the next trial team to build alternative-design evidence, such as Monsanto's own glyphosate-free residential products, more centrally into its case.
• Clock pressure. Claimants who are not in the class and have not filed must still watch the applicable Statute of Limitations; a wait-and-see strategy has costs.

Bayer and Monsanto

• Settlement leverage. The verdict gives Bayer evidence for the approval record and for individual negotiations with remaining opt-out holders.
• Limited appellate value. A defense win does not produce an appellate preemption ruling. Bayer's broader legal strategy still runs through the MDL, the Dennis remand in California, and any appeal in Shull or similar state cases.
• Venue variance. Five wins in St. Louis County do not predict Philadelphia, where plaintiffs have done well. The next design-only trial in a plaintiff-friendly venue will matter as much as this one.

Objectors and class members

• A harder adequacy argument. Objectors contending the matrix undervalues claims now face a concrete counterexample. Arguments about notice, opt-out mechanics and the class counsel fee request are unaffected by the verdict and remain live.
• Future claimants. The case for a long-tail payment stream is stronger when the litigation alternative looks weaker, which may influence how the court views the futures component.

Litigation funders and lenders

• Portfolio exposure. Funders that financed Roundup opt-out inventories will mark down expected recoveries after a $0 verdict in the first post-Durnell trial. Third-Party Litigation Funding agreements that key repayment to settlement value will feel that change before any further trial.

FAQ

Who won the first Roundup trial after the Supreme Court's Durnell ruling?

Monsanto won. A unanimous St. Louis County, Missouri jury returned a defense verdict on October 29, 2026, in Aretino v. Monsanto, rejecting all claims by three plaintiffs, in the first Roundup trial since Monsanto Co. v. Durnell.

How much money did the Aretino plaintiffs ask for?

Plaintiffs' counsel Greg Dovel asked for $10 million to $30 million for each of the three women, up to $90 million in total. The jury awarded nothing.

How does the Aretino verdict affect the $7.25 billion Roundup settlement?

It has no formal effect because the plaintiffs opted out, but it supports Bayer's argument that the class deal is adequate compared with the risks of trial. Judge Timothy Boyer had not ruled on final approval as of October 29, 2026.

Does the Aretino verdict mean Roundup design defect claims are preempted?

No. The jury decided the facts, not federal law. Whether Durnell also preempts design defect and negligence claims is still being litigated, including in MDL 2741 before Judge Chhabria, and Missouri's Boone County court has held those claims are not preempted.

Can the Aretino plaintiffs appeal the Roundup verdict?

Yes. After judgment, they can move for a new trial within 30 days under Missouri Rule 78.04 and appeal to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District. An appeal would need to show legal error, and Monsanto could defend the judgment on preemption grounds.

Is it still worth filing a Roundup lawsuit after the Aretino verdict?

That depends on individual facts, venue and deadlines, and is a question for a lawyer. Legally, design defect and negligence claims remain available in many courts after Durnell; Aretino shows they are harder to win at trial than the warning claims that drove earlier Roundup verdicts, and people within the King class definition who did not opt out are covered by the settlement process if it is approved.