[24-1068] Monsanto Co. v. Durnell

Mr.

Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, respondent's label-based failure to warn claim is preempted twice over.

First, it is preempted by the express terms of FIFRA's express preemption clause, which forecloses state labeling claims that are in addition to or different from those imposed under FIFRA.

Here, a Missouri jury imposed a cancer warning requirement that e- the EPA does not require.

That additional requirement is preempted.

Now, respondent concedes, as he must, that the state tort law is a labeling requirement for purposes of preemption clause.

Bates held as much.

Nonetheless, he insists that unless Congress expressly directs the agency to bind the judiciary, then the requirements that are imposed on a particular pesticide in the registration process and backed by criminal penalties are not federal requirements.

That defies common sense, the statutory text, and this Court's precedence.

In particular, this Court's eight to one decision in Regal, where this court held that similar agency-imposed requirements on a particular device are federal requirements for preemption purposes.

The same result follows from principles of impossibility preemption.

The EPA regulation and the government's brief here makes crystal clear that a registrant cannot change the safety warnings on a pesticide label without approval of the agency.

Thus, Missouri law here requires something that not only is not required by federal law, but that federal law doesn't even allow.

Either way you come to it, either via express preemption or impossibility preemption, the result here is clear.

Congress plainly wanted uniformity when it came to the safety warnings on a pesticide's label.

Ignoring Congress's clear direction here would open the door for crippling liability and undermine the interest of farmers who depend on federally registered pesticides for their livelihood.

I welcome the Court's questions.