Merril Hoge Roundup Lawsuit Survives Durnell: Idaho Judge Keeps Negligence Claim, Bars Failure to Warn

The Merril Hoge Roundup lawsuit goes forward, minus its warning claim

The Merril Hoge Roundup lawsuit will continue: U.S. District Judge David Nye of the District of Idaho has rejected Monsanto's argument that the Supreme Court's June 2026 decision in Monsanto Co. v. Durnell wipes out the former NFL running back's cancer case, allowing his negligence claim to proceed while barring his failure-to-warn claim, according to Capital Press reporting published October 7, 2026. The ruling matters because it is one of the first federal decisions to sort Roundup claims one by one under Durnell, and it draws the line not at the label itself but at anything "label-adjacent."

That second point is the real news for practitioners. Plaintiffs' lawyers had read Durnell as a narrow ruling about cancer warnings on the EPA-approved label, leaving room for warning theories routed through advertising, sales materials, or other channels. Judge Nye's approach closes much of that door, while keeping open the negligence theories that focus on what Monsanto did rather than what its label said. For the roughly 3,900 cases still pending in the federal Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) and for every plaintiff who opted out of Bayer's $7.25 billion class settlement, the Hoge order is an early map of which claims are worth keeping.

What did the judge rule in Merril Hoge's Roundup lawsuit?

Monsanto moved to dismiss Hoge's complaint after Durnell, arguing that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) preempted the entire case. Judge Nye granted the motion in part and denied it in part. As reported, he acknowledged that the Supreme Court's ruling "threw a wrench in this case," but concluded that it did not entirely preclude Hoge's claims and that the Supreme Court had not gone as far as Monsanto argued.

The result, claim by claim:

Claim	Ruling	Reasoning as reported
Failure to Warn	Cannot proceed to trial	Even though it did not directly attack the federal label, the claim was "label-adjacent" and risked conflicting with Durnell
Negligence	Survives	"Not wholesale pre-empted"; Hoge may argue that factors other than labeling point to Monsanto's liability
Case as a whole	Not dismissed	Durnell did not reach every theory a Roundup plaintiff can plead

The order's docket number and exact entry date were not available in the reporting reviewed for this article, and the full text of the order had not been widely published as of October 7. The analysis below is therefore based on the court's reasoning as reported, read against the text of Durnell itself.

Is Merril Hoge's Roundup lawsuit preempted by Monsanto v. Durnell?

Only in part. The failure-to-warn claim is preempted; the negligence claim is not. That split mirrors the structure of Durnell, which addressed a single theory. In Durnell, decided June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court held 7-2 that FIFRA's preemption clause, 7 U.S.C. § 136v(b), bars a state-law claim that a pesticide label should have carried a cancer warning "in addition to or different from" the label EPA required. Justice Kavanaugh wrote for the majority; Justice Thomas concurred; Justice Jackson dissented, joined by Justice Gorsuch.

The Court's reasoning runs through the registration process. Once EPA approves a pesticide's label, the manufacturer must use that label unless and until EPA approves or requires a change. A state tort duty to warn is a state labeling requirement under Bates v. Dow Agrosciences (2005), so a jury verdict demanding a cancer warning EPA never required imposes a "different" requirement and is preempted. The majority drew on Riegel v. Medtronic, reasoning that if FDA premarket approval of devices preempts additional state requirements, EPA approval of pesticide labels must do the same.

What Durnell did not decide is whether claims that do not rest on labeling, such as Design Defect, negligent testing, or general negligence, are preempted. John Durnell's own jury had rejected his non-warning theories, so those claims were not before the Court. Judge Nye's ruling treats that silence as meaningful: a claim that does not depend on what the label should have said is outside the holding.

Why was Hoge's failure-to-warn claim dismissed?

The interesting part of the ruling is not that the warning claim fell, which most observers expected after Durnell, but why. According to the reporting, Hoge's failure-to-warn claim did not directly implicate the federal label, yet Judge Nye still refused to let it reach a jury. He was unwilling to risk running counter to the Supreme Court by allowing a "label-adjacent" claim to proceed.

That reasoning rejects a strategy plaintiffs' firms adopted almost immediately after June 25. The theory goes like this: Durnell preempts demands for a different label, but Monsanto could have warned through other channels, such as advertising, point-of-sale materials, websites, or direct communication with commercial users, without changing the EPA-approved label at all. In July, Judge Margaret Guzman of the District of Massachusetts suggested in Rubin v. Monsanto that such an off-label warning theory might be viable, and Crowell & Moring's post-Durnell client alert listed advertising and promotional claims among the theories that may remain open.

Judge Nye's answer, as reported, is that a warning claim does not escape Durnell merely because the plaintiff relocates the missing warning from the label to somewhere else. If the substance of the claim is that consumers should have been told about a cancer risk that EPA's label does not mention, it sits close enough to the label to fall within the preemption rule.

What is a "label-adjacent" claim?

A "label-adjacent" claim is the phrase Judge Nye used, as reported, for a theory that does not formally attack the EPA-approved label but whose success would effectively require Monsanto to communicate the same cancer warning the label omits. The term is not a FIFRA statutory concept and does not appear in Durnell; it is a court's description of the risk that a creative pleading would accomplish indirectly what the Supreme Court forbade directly.

In practice, claims likely to be treated as label-adjacent include:

• failure to warn through advertising, brochures, or product websites;
• failure to warn through instructions or safety data distributed separately from the container;
• negligent misrepresentation claims whose only falsity is the absence of a cancer warning;
• consumer protection claims premised on the same omission.

Claims less likely to be treated as label-adjacent include theories about how glyphosate formulations were designed, how Monsanto tested them, what it knew from its own research, and whether a feasible safer formulation existed. Those theories do not require a warning at all; they allege the product or the company's conduct was the problem.

Can Roundup negligence claims still go to trial?

Yes, at least in Judge Nye's courtroom and in the Missouri state courts that have ruled so far. Judge Nye found that Hoge's negligence claim is "not wholesale pre-empted" because Hoge can argue that factors other than labeling show Monsanto's liability. The phrase "wholesale" is doing work: the judge did not hold that every negligence theory survives, only that negligence as a category is not swept away. At summary judgment and trial, Monsanto will be free to argue that particular negligence theories collapse back into a warning claim.

The surviving theories will likely concentrate on negligent design, negligent testing, and the company's conduct in assessing glyphosate's safety. That matches the path taken in Missouri. On August 31, 2026, Boone County Circuit Judge Jeff Harris denied Monsanto summary judgment in the Shull case, holding that Durnell made no finding as to design defect or negligence claims and rejecting implied preemption of those theories. Monsanto's response to Shull, reported at the time, was that such claims are preempted failure-to-warn claims under a different name. Judge Nye's split ruling partly accepts that argument for warnings and rejects it for negligence.

Who is Merril Hoge and why did he sue Monsanto?

Merril Hoge is a former Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Bears running back who later worked as an ESPN analyst. He filed suit against Monsanto in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho in 2019, alleging that Roundup caused the non-Hodgkin lymphoma he was diagnosed with in 2003. He underwent chemotherapy and has been in remission since.

The complaint alleges that Hoge began working on an Idaho farm, Shiozawa Farms, as a teenager in 1977, and that he mixed and sprayed Roundup on crops and other plants as part of his job duties for years while following the product's safety instructions. It pleads negligence and alleges that Monsanto made "false, misleading, and untrue" statements about Roundup's safety. Hoge seeks damages for past and future physical and emotional pain and suffering, plus economic damages. His lawyer, Joseph Osborne, said at filing that Hoge did not connect his diagnosis to Roundup until studies began questioning the product's safety.

Bayer, Monsanto's parent company, responded in 2019 that four decades of science on glyphosate-based herbicides support the conclusion that Roundup does not cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a position it maintains. When it was filed, Hoge's case was one of roughly 18,400 Roundup suits nationwide, and it was transferred into MDL 2741, In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, before Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California. It is now before Judge Nye in Idaho.

Which Roundup claims survive after the Supreme Court's Durnell decision?

Three months after Durnell, trial courts are converging on a rough consensus: label-based warning claims are gone, design and negligence theories survive the pleadings, and the fight has moved to how far "warning" extends. The decisions so far:

Case	Court	Date	Warning claims	Design / negligence claims
Monsanto Co. v. Durnell	U.S. Supreme Court	June 25, 2026	Preempted (label-based)	Not decided
Rubin v. Monsanto	D. Mass. (Judge Margaret Guzman)	July 2026	Off-label warning theory left open; leave to amend by Aug. 28	Left open: Durnell "left open other state law claims"
Shull	Boone County, Mo. (Judge Jeff Harris)	Aug. 31, 2026	Not the focus	Survive summary judgment; no implied preemption
Aretino v. Monsanto	St. Louis County, Mo. (Judge Brian May)	Trial opened Sept. 29, 2026	Not tried	Design defect tried to a jury
Hoge v. Monsanto	D. Idaho (Judge David Nye)	Reported Oct. 7, 2026	Barred, including "label-adjacent" theory	Negligence survives
MDL 2741	N.D. Cal. (Judge Vince Chhabria)	Hearing reportedly set Mar. 19, 2027	Pending	Pending

The Hoge ruling sits between Rubin and Shull. It agrees with both that Durnell is limited, but it is stricter than Rubin on warning theories pleaded outside the label. If that view spreads, plaintiffs' complaints will have to stand on design and conduct allegations alone.

What does the Hoge ruling mean for the Roundup MDL and the $7.25 billion settlement?

For the MDL, Judge Nye's order is persuasive authority from a federal court applying Durnell to an individual complaint, though it binds no other judge. After Durnell, Bayer asked Judge Chhabria to dismiss the remaining federal cases, roughly 3,900 to 4,000 by tracker estimates, arguing the ruling eliminated the core theory of the litigation. According to secondary reporting, Judge Chhabria has divided the remaining cases into categories and will hear Monsanto's motion to dismiss two of those groups on March 19, 2027. A Hoge-style ruling there would preserve negligence and design claims while trimming warning theories, which is far from the across-the-board dismissal Bayer has sought.

For the settlement, the effect is indirect but real. Judge Timothy Boyer of the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis heard final approval arguments on September 14, 2026 in King v. Monsanto, the $7.25 billion class deal covering roughly 65,000 current claims and a futures subclass, and had not ruled as of early October. Monsanto's counsel told the court that "this is the settlement" and that there is "not another settlement." Objectors argue the payment matrix undervalues claims. Every ruling that keeps negligence and design claims alive outside the deal strengthens the hand of opt-outs and weakens Bayer's argument that the settlement is the only route to payment. Every ruling that strips warning theories reduces the trial value of those same opt-out claims. Hoge does both at once.

What Monsanto is likely to argue next

Three lines of attack are predictable from Monsanto's filings in other post-Durnell cases.

Recharacterization. Monsanto will argue at summary judgment that Hoge's negligence evidence is, in substance, about warnings, for example evidence that Monsanto knew of a cancer signal and failed to tell users. Judge Nye's "label-adjacent" reasoning gives Monsanto a ready framework for excluding negligence theories that rely on a failure to communicate rather than a failure in design or testing.

Implied preemption. Missouri courts have rejected the argument that design claims are impliedly preempted because a redesigned product would need a new EPA registration. Monsanto has signaled it will raise that argument on appeal and can be expected to press it in federal court as well.

Causation. Durnell changed nothing about General Causation and Specific Causation. Hoge must still prove that glyphosate can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that it caused his, through experts who survive a Daubert Challenge. EPA's long-standing position that glyphosate is not likely carcinogenic remains part of Monsanto's case on the merits.

What it means for plaintiffs' firms, defendants and funders

Plaintiffs' firms. Complaints drafted after Durnell should lead with design, testing, and corporate-conduct allegations and avoid any theory that depends on what consumers should have been told. Hoge suggests that relocating the warning to advertising or other materials will not save it in every court. Firms holding opt-out inventories should re-score each case on the strength of its design and negligence evidence alone, including evidence of a feasible alternative formulation.

Defendants. Pesticide manufacturers, including those facing paraquat and chlorpyrifos claims, now have a federal decision extending Durnell to label-adjacent warning theories. They also have confirmation that Durnell will not end litigation at the pleadings: negligence theories will need to be defeated on evidence, not on preemption alone.

Funders and settlement planners. Third-Party Litigation Funding priced on pre-Durnell verdicts, many of which rested on warning theories, is now mispriced. Underwriting should assume warning claims carry no value, design and negligence claims carry uncertain value pending the first post-Durnell verdicts, and timelines in the MDL extend at least into 2027.

Claimants. Individuals deciding between the class settlement and litigation should understand that the legal landscape is moving claim by claim and court by court. This analysis is not legal advice; claim-specific questions belong with counsel.

Frequently asked questions

What did the judge rule in Merril Hoge's Roundup lawsuit?

Judge David Nye of the District of Idaho barred Hoge's failure-to-warn claim as "label-adjacent" and preempted after Monsanto v. Durnell, but allowed his negligence claim to proceed because it is "not wholesale pre-empted," according to Capital Press reporting on October 7, 2026.

Can Roundup lawsuits still be filed after the Supreme Court ruling?

Yes. Durnell preempts state failure-to-warn claims that would require a cancer warning on the EPA-approved label, but courts in Idaho, Massachusetts, and Missouri have allowed negligence or design defect claims to continue. Whether a particular claim survives depends on how closely it is tied to the label.

Why did the Hoge ruling block the failure-to-warn claim if it did not attack the label?

Judge Nye concluded, as reported, that a warning claim aimed at channels other than the label is still "label-adjacent" and risks conflicting with Durnell, because it would effectively require Monsanto to communicate the same cancer warning EPA's label omits.

Does the Hoge ruling affect the Roundup MDL?

Not directly. It is a single district court order and binds no other judge, but it is persuasive authority for Judge Chhabria in MDL 2741, where Monsanto's motion to dismiss two categories of remaining cases under Durnell is reportedly set for hearing on March 19, 2027.

Has the $7.25 billion Roundup settlement been approved?

Not as of early October 2026. Judge Timothy Boyer heard final approval arguments on September 14, 2026 in King v. Monsanto and reserved decision.

What happens next in the Hoge case?

The negligence claim proceeds toward expert discovery, summary judgment, and potentially trial in Idaho, where Monsanto is expected to argue that Hoge's negligence evidence is a disguised warning claim and that glyphosate did not cause his lymphoma.