Thousands of people who say Roundup weed killer gave them cancer have sued Bayer-owned Monsanto, and the federal cases were all moved to one judge in California. As of the court report dated August 3, 2026, 3,932 of them were still pending. This page tracks that count — who is hearing the cases, what happens to one, and why there is nothing to claim here.
Contested Allegations · Nothing to Claim Here
These lawsuits allege that exposure to Roundup caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Monsanto and Bayer deny those allegations. Individual juries have reached different conclusions in different cases, and a jury verdict in one case decides only that case. What this page tracks is a court docket rather than a claims process, so there is no claim form, administrator, or deadline attached to it. It is informational and is not legal advice.
How Many Roundup Lawsuits Are Still Pending?
3,932 Roundup lawsuits were still pending in the federal litigation as of the court report dated August 3, 2026, out of 5,322 filed there since 2016. All of them sit before one judge — U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California — who has handled the federal Roundup cases since October 2016. Each one is a separate lawsuit brought by a separate person who says Roundup caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It is not a class action, and there is no claim form to fill out here.The court calls that grouping MDL 2741, short for multidistrict litigation docket number 2741. The name is the reason this litigation is confusing to read about, so the sections below translate it: where the case count comes from, why other sources quote numbers many times larger, and what an individual case goes through once it lands there.
Potential Individual Lawsuit — Not a Claim Form
There is no claim form for these lawsuits, because this is a court docket rather than a claims process. A case gets there when someone files an individual lawsuit. The free case review below is a sponsored attorney-intake form for that path: submitting it does not file anything with a court, does not add you to the federal Roundup docket, does not register you for the proposed class settlement, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Whether you have a case is for the reviewing attorneys to assess — filing deadlines vary by state, and the Supreme Court's June 2026 decision in Monsanto Co. v. Durnell narrowed which legal theories remain available.
Where That Number Comes From, and Why You'll See Much Bigger Ones
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation publishes a pending-case report every month, which makes this one of the few mass torts where the count is a matter of public record rather than an estimate. Two figures appear in each report: cases currently pending, and the cumulative total ever filed into the group. The gap between them is the number of cases that have already been resolved, dismissed, or sent back to their original courts.| Court report date | Lawsuits pending | Total ever filed |
|---|---|---|
| August 3, 2026 | 3,932 | 5,322 |
| July 1, 2026 | 3,909 | — |
Read that count carefully, because it is the number most often misquoted. The roughly 3,900 figure is the federal group alone. Reporting that puts the Roundup case count in the tens of thousands is counting something broader — cases filed in state courts, and claims asserted against Bayer that were never filed as federal lawsuits at all. Both numbers can be accurate at once; they are measuring different things. When a source gives a Roundup case count without saying which of the two it means, the number is not usable.
Why Thousands of Roundup Lawsuits Sit in One California Court
When the same product generates the same lawsuit in dozens of federal courts, a body called the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation can move all of those cases to a single judge. That is what happened here: on October 3, 2016 the Panel transferred 19 Roundup cases to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and assigned them to Judge Vince Chhabria, who has had them ever since. The formal name is In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2741.The move is made under 28 U.S.C. § 1407, the statute that lets the Panel group related federal cases so shared pretrial work happens once instead of thousands of times. Grouping is all it does. Every case is still a separate lawsuit brought by a separate person, with its own facts, its own medical history, and its own outcome. That is the single most important thing to understand here, and the point most often lost in coverage: there is no class, no class representative, and no one judgment that decides everyone's case at once. A related explainer on how these federal groupings work across every active mass tort covers the mechanics in more depth.
What Happens to a Roundup Case Once It Gets There
Section 1407 hands that judge the case for pretrial purposes only. In practice it means discovery, document production, and the expert-evidence rulings that decide what a jury is allowed to hear all happen once, in the Northern District of California, instead of thousands of times in thousands of courtrooms.A small number of cases are then selected as bellwether trials. A bellwether is a test case: it is tried to a real verdict, and both sides read the result as a signal about how the remaining cases might perform. Hardeman v. Monsanto was among the cases transferred into the federal group and became one of those bellwethers. A bellwether verdict binds only the parties to that case; it sets no precedent that decides anyone else's lawsuit.
A case that neither settles nor is dismissed is supposed to be sent back — remanded — to the court where it was originally filed, for trial. In practice the large majority resolve or are dismissed before reaching that stage, which is why the pending count falls over time even without trials.
What the Supreme Court's 2026 Ruling Changed for These Cases
On June 25, 2026 the Supreme Court decided Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, holding 7-2 that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims that would require a cancer warning beyond what the EPA's approved labeling requires. We cover the ruling itself, the reasoning, and the opinions in a separate report on the Supreme Court's Roundup decision.What matters for the pending count is narrower. Failure to warn was the theory behind much of the Roundup litigation, so the ruling reaches into the cases sitting in the federal group rather than just the Missouri case it decided. Bayer has argued that the decision leaves the federal cases with little left to try. Plaintiffs' counsel have argued that theories not built on the product label — defective design, negligent testing, and misrepresentation claims among them — survive the ruling and keep those cases alive.
That disagreement had not been resolved as of August 5, 2026. Which claims survive Durnell, and what that means for the pending count above, is a question in front of Judge Chhabria rather than a settled matter, and this page does not predict how he will rule.
These Lawsuits Are Not the $7.25 Billion Roundup Settlement
These are two separate tracks in two different court systems, and confusing them is the most common error readers arrive with.The cases counted on this page are individual federal lawsuits in California, described above. The proposed $7.25 billion Roundup class settlement was filed in Missouri state court and would operate through a class structure with its own approval process, on its own schedule, before a different judge. A case being counted in the pending figure above says nothing about whether that person is covered by the proposed settlement, and vice versa.
Settlement terms, eligibility, payment amounts, and filing instructions are deliberately not on this page — they belong with the settlement, and we keep them on our $7.25 billion Bayer Roundup settlement report and the how to file page instead.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Roundup lawsuits are still pending?
3,932 Roundup lawsuits were still pending in the federal litigation as of the court report dated August 3, 2026, out of 5,322 filed there since 2016. The July 1, 2026 report listed 3,909 pending. That count covers the federal cases grouped as MDL 2741 only; cases filed in state courts are counted separately, which is why other figures run far higher. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation publishes the count monthly, so it moves between reports.
Which court is handling the Roundup lawsuits?
The federal Roundup cases are grouped in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who has handled them since the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation created the group, MDL 2741, on October 3, 2016. Roundup cases filed in state courts stay in those courts.
Is the Roundup lawsuit a class action?
No. The federal Roundup cases are grouped for efficiency, not merged into a class action. Every case in MDL 2741 remains a separate lawsuit with its own plaintiff; the Panel moves them to one judge under 28 U.S.C. § 1407 only so that pretrial work such as discovery and expert rulings happens once instead of thousands of times. There is no class, no class representative, and no single judgment binding everyone. The proposed $7.25 billion Roundup class settlement is a different case in a different court.
Is there a claim form for the Roundup lawsuits?
No. This is a court docket, not a claims process, so there is no claim form, no administrator, and no deadline attached to it. A case gets there only when someone files an individual lawsuit that is then transferred in, or files directly into the district.
Can I still file a Roundup lawsuit?
That depends on facts this page cannot assess. Filing deadlines vary by state, and the Supreme Court's June 25, 2026 decision in Monsanto Co. v. Durnell narrowed which legal theories remain available by holding that federal pesticide law preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims. Whether an individual case can still be brought is a question for a lawyer, not a claim form.
What happens to a Roundup case at the end?
Section 1407 gives the judge handling the group the case for pretrial purposes only. A case that neither settles nor is dismissed is supposed to be sent back to the district it came from for trial. In practice most cases in a grouping like this resolve or are dismissed before that point.
Does the $7.25 billion Roundup settlement cover these lawsuits?
They are separate tracks. The proposed class settlement was filed in Missouri state court, not in the federal grouping, and the two proceed on different schedules before different judges. Nothing on this page describes settlement terms, eligibility, or payment amounts.
Sources
- U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, pending-MDL statistics reports dated August 3, 2026 and July 1, 2026 (actions pending and total actions for MDL 2741).
- JPML initial transfer order, MDL No. 2741, October 3, 2016 (centralization of 19 actions in the Northern District of California before Judge Vince Chhabria).
- Supreme Court of the United States, Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, No. 24-1068 (June 25, 2026).
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of California — In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2741.
- CourtListener docket — In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2741.
Free settlement alerts
Get notified when new class actions open to claims
Join thousands of readers who get the latest class action settlements you may qualify for — delivered straight to your inbox.
