The most common worry we hear on intake calls is "I don't think I used enough Roundup to have a case." We hear it from full-time agricultural workers, and we hear it from homeowners who sprayed their fence line every spring for twenty years. The truth is the same in both calls: let us look at it. Eligibility is fact-specific, and what feels like "not enough" is often plenty.
The Three Exposure Categories
Roundup litigation generally recognizes three exposure categories. They are not formal legal classifications — cases are evaluated individually — but they are how plaintiffs' lawyers, defense lawyers, and the science tend to think about exposure intensity.
1. Agricultural Workers
Farmers, ranchers, agricultural applicators, ag-cooperative employees, custom-application crews, and other full-time agricultural workers are the highest-exposure category. Their cases are the strongest in the medical literature and in the federal Roundup MDL. Within this group:
- Crop farmers — especially row-crop farmers (corn, soy, cotton, wheat) growing genetically modified Roundup Ready crops, where glyphosate is sprayed in volume and over years.
- Orchard, vineyard, and nursery operators — using glyphosate for weed control under trees and around vines.
- Custom and certified pesticide applicators — including aerial applicators, ground sprayers, and crop-consultant teams.
- Ranch workers — spraying pasture, fence lines, corrals, and around outbuildings.
Documentation in this group tends to be straightforward: tax records, employment history, application records, and equipment logs. Many agricultural workers also have decades of cumulative exposure, which is the variable most strongly correlated with cancer risk in the IARC and Agricultural Health Study analyses.
2. Landscapers, Groundskeepers, And Outdoor Tradespeople
The second-tier exposure category is the broad set of outdoor occupations that involve regular Roundup use, including:
- Landscapers and lawn-care company employees
- Golf course superintendents and grounds crews
- Municipal grounds workers — parks-and-recreation, public-works, school-district maintenance, cemetery workers
- Highway and right-of-way crews — state and federal DOT crews, utility right-of-way clearing, railroad right-of-way maintenance
- Garden center, nursery, and greenhouse employees
- Forestry workers using glyphosate for understory and stand management
This group is sometimes overlooked. Workers in these jobs often used Roundup throughout the work week for years or decades without considering themselves "agricultural workers" in the medical sense. They are. The cumulative exposure profiles in this group can equal or exceed many full-time farmers.
3. Residential And Heavy Home Users
The third category is residential users with significant repeated exposure. The threshold here is judgment-call territory, but the patterns we see most often involve:
- Regular yard, garden, and lawn spraying over multiple seasons
- Fence-line, driveway, sidewalk, and patio spraying for weed control
- Brush and vegetation clearing on rural residential lots, hobby farms, and acreage properties
- Around outbuildings, sheds, barns, and chicken coops on residential and small-farm properties
- Property-management spraying by landlords and property owners
Residential cases require more documentation than occupational cases — receipts, photographs, witness statements from family or neighbors, hardware-store records when available — but they are not categorically weaker. The science underlying glyphosate's link to NHL is the same biology regardless of where the spray happened.
The Four Qualifying Cancer Categories
Not every cancer in a Roundup user is a Roundup case. The four cancer families most consistently accepted in Roundup litigation are blood and lymphatic cancers that fit the biological mechanism by which glyphosate damages B-cell lymphocytes.
Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) — All Subtypes
The cancer most strongly tied to Roundup. Includes Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBCL), Follicular Lymphoma, Marginal Zone Lymphoma, Mantle Cell Lymphoma, Burkitt Lymphoma, T-cell lymphomas (peripheral, cutaneous, anaplastic large cell), Lymphoplasmacytic Lymphoma / Waldenström, Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma, and Primary CNS Lymphoma.
B-cell Lymphoma — A Recognized Category On Its Own
The largest family within NHL (roughly 85% of NHL cases). DLBCL and Follicular Lymphoma are the two we see most often in Roundup plaintiffs. Herb Borroto, M.D., J.D., reads the immunohistochemistry, flow cytometry, and molecular reports personally to confirm the subtype.
Leukemia — CLL, SLL, And Hairy Cell Leukemia
Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) and its lymph-node-presentation twin Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma (SLL) are the most common leukemias linked to Roundup. Hairy Cell Leukemia is rarer but consistently accepted in the federal MDL. Other leukemias (AML, ALL, CML) have a less consistent record but can be evaluated.
Multiple Myeloma — Plasma Cell Cancers
Active Multiple Myeloma, smoldering myeloma that progressed or required treatment, plasmacytoma, and plasma cell leukemia. Plasma cells are differentiated B-cells, so the same biology that drives NHL also drives myeloma. The agricultural cohort literature has flagged this association repeatedly.
Wrongful Death Cases
If a family member used Roundup, was diagnosed with one of the qualifying cancers, and has since died, surviving family members often have a wrongful death claim. The eligibility analysis is essentially the same as for a living plaintiff — exposure history plus qualifying diagnosis — with one important difference: wrongful death statutes of limitations are often shorter than personal-injury statutes of limitations, and they often run from the date of death rather than the date of diagnosis. If you are a surviving spouse, child, or parent of someone who used Roundup and died of one of these cancers, do not assume the clock is generous. Call us.
What We Need To Evaluate Your Case
The free case review is structured around three categories of information. None of it is technical — you do not need to gather records or write a memo. We talk you through it on the call.
- The medical record. Pathology report, oncology charts, treatment summaries. We help you obtain whatever you do not have. Herb Borroto reads the records personally — he is a physician, not a paralegal, and he reviews every Roundup case at intake.
- The exposure history. Where, when, how often, how intensely, what protective measures (or none). Occupational exposure tends to come with documentation; residential exposure often comes with witness recollection. Both are workable.
- The timeline. Date of diagnosis, current treatment status, and the statute-of-limitations clock for your state. This is usually the time-sensitive piece, and it is the one that benefits most from calling earlier rather than later.
What If You Are Not Sure You Qualify?
The honest answer most of the time is: you are probably qualified to have your case evaluated, even if you are not certain you are qualified to file. The intake call is the evaluation, not the filing decision. There is no cost. There is no obligation. If we do not think the case is right, we will tell you. If we do, we will tell you what the next steps look like and what the realistic timeline is for your state.
Bottom Line
Three exposure categories — agricultural, outdoor occupational, and residential. Four cancer families — Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, B-cell Lymphoma, Leukemia (CLL/SLL/Hairy Cell), and Multiple Myeloma. Wrongful death claims for surviving family. The boundaries are not as narrow as people assume, and the statute-of-limitations clock is shorter than most people assume. If you used Roundup and were diagnosed with one of these cancers, the next move is a phone call. We work on contingency. There is no fee unless we recover for you.