Letters to the Editor: The Supreme Court actually got it right in ruling in favor of Roundup
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To the editor: Contributing writer Erwin Chemerinsky was right about Damon Landor’s inability to sue when the law was clear that his rights were violated (“Justices’ decisions slam closed the courthouse doors,” June 25). It’s also spot-on that the Mullin vs. Al Otro Lado asylum case ruling will, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor states, result in more people dying. People are being blocked from redress when harmed.
Where Chemerinsky missed the mark was with the Monsanto Co. vs. Durnell decision. Being able to sue is predicated on being injured by the defendant. John Durnell has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but federal agencies have found the link between cancer and Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, unlikely. The Environmental Protection Agency didn’t require a warning label for solid scientific reasons.
As Health Canada puts it: “No pesticide regulatory authority in the world currently considers glyphosate to be a cancer risk to humans at the levels at which humans are currently exposed.” This was a rare instance of the current Supreme Court getting it right. It will cut down on frivolous lawsuits that run counter to science. There is no failure to warn argument when there is nothing that merits a warning.
Chemerinsky was making a good point, but mistakenly included an example that didn’t support his case.
Richard Green, Ventura
