Search comment k

Strict liability is not the same as absolute liability.  We learned that truth in law school, but too many plaintiff lawyers and judges seem to have unlearned it along the way.  The key separator between strict liability and absolute liability is comment k to section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965), which observes …

In Hawaii, from whence today’s case comes, tourists are encouraged to try poi, mashed up taro root, which looks like purple wallpaper paste and tastes like, well, purple wallpaper paste. The term is also used as a friendly descriptor of ethnically ambiguous looking people, whose roots have been mashed together to form something not readily identifiable by traditional visual stereotypes. (At least it seemed friendly when we heard it applied to our own offspring.) Personally, we think it is a nice concept and the less that categorizing people to determine their rights, opportunities, and expectations happens, the better. For a number of aspects of product liability law, however, the decision on whether to proceed categorically or case-by-case is still hotly contested. This is particularly true for comment k to the Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 402A, which forms the meat of the decision in Segovia v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., CV. No. 15-00519 DKW-RLP, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52405 (D. Haw. Apr. 19, 2016).

Segovia involves a fatal hemorrhagic stroke with an anticoagulant prescribed and used for atrial fibrillation. We are not sure what was different from the first complaint, but the second try made vague allegations about misrepresentations to FDA and others that it was “tested and found to be safe and effective for its indicated uses” and that FDA and others had not been told of the drug’s “defects” in support of allegations of strict liability and negligent failure to warn and design defect theories. While it seems like this complaint asserted claims based on non-existent duties and clearly preempted claims, the only issues addressed by the court on the motion to dismiss were whether Hawaii law took comment k to preclude design defect claims for all prescription drugs categorically and whether any fraud-based claims had been pleaded with sufficient particularity.

As to the first question, the court did not look to our relatively recent discussions on this issue, but generally looked to older cases to find the public policy rationale for taking a case-by-case approach for prescription drugs—which was essentially determinative on a motion to dismiss. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. The first step was determining what Hawaii case law already said about comment k and only two cases were discussed. Larsen v. Pacesetter Sys., Inc., 837 P.2d 1273, 1286 (Haw. 1992), involved a pacemaker—not a drug—and concluded that summary judgment based on comment k was inappropriate where there was evidence that the “pacemaker was demonstrably capable of being made safe for its intended use.” Forsyth v. Eli Lilly & Co., 1998 WL 35152135, **3-4 (D. Haw. Jan. 5, 1998), involved a prescription drug, but did not decide the issue of categorical or case-by-case because a genuine issue as to the adequacy of warnings was sufficient to preclude summary judgment. Rather than view these cases are leaving the issue open, the Segovia court found “neither Larsen nor Forsythe create a blanket rule of design defect immunity for pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the Court declines to extend comment k in a fashion that the Hawaii courts themselves have thus far declined to do.” 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52405, *11. We think this misconstrues comment k, which does not provide “immunity,” and what it means to conclude that all prescription drugs are “unavoidably unsafe.”Continue Reading Some Case-by-Case Comment K Mixed with Some Insufficient Pleading of Fraud

When we examined Restatement (Second) of Torts §402A, comment k (1965), in our 2011 research post “Comment K, Some of the Way,” we remarked about how it said “a lot of things,” including: (1) that one can’t design away unavoidable risks, (2) that unavoidably unsafe products aren’t considered “unreasonably dangerous” for purposes of strict liability, and (3) that such products are “especially common” in the prescription medical product area. The first proposition suggests that design defect liability is incompatible with unavoidably unsafe product characteristics. The second indicates that unavoidably unsafe products shouldn’t be subject to strict liability. The third raises the issue of whether all prescription medical products should be considered unavoidably unsafe products – since their inherent risks are why they require a prescription in the first place.

We pointed out that some states, like California and Utah, prohibit design defect liability altogether, following that aspect of comment k. Others, like Pennsylvania, reject strict liability in the context of prescription medical products. Often, as is the case in Massachusetts, the status of negligent design liability is uncertain.

However, the most striking divide has always been between those states following a case-by case approach to determining whether a given product was “unreasonably dangerous” and those states that followed an “across-the-board” approach to comment k in the prescription medical product area. After adding everything up, we had to conclude in our blogpost that, despite its inherent inefficiency and tendency to second-guess the FDA, the case-by-case approach to comment k remained the majority rule.Continue Reading Comment K Case by Case – Falling Out of Favor?

As drug and device lawyers we live in a comment k dominated world.  When we say comment k on this blog, everyone knows what we mean.  We aren’t talking about a scientific discovery regarding potassium.  We aren’t reviewing a new flavor of k-cup for the Keurig.  We aren’t posting about breakfast cereals.  And we definitely are not passing comment on the Kardashians, Kobe, Keanu, or K-Fed.

But just in case you need a refresher, here is the comment k that concerns us:

Unavoidably unsafe products. There are some products which, in the present state of human knowledge, are quite incapable of being made safe for their intended and ordinary use. These are especially common in the field of drugs. . . . Such a product, properly prepared, and accompanied by proper directions and warning, is not defective, nor is it unreasonably dangerous. The same is true of many other drugs, vaccines, and the like, many of which for this very reason cannot legally be sold except to physicians, or under the prescription of a physician. . . .  The seller of such products, again with the qualification that they are properly prepared and marketed, and proper warning is given, where the situation calls for it, is not to be held to strict liability for unfortunate consequences attending their use, merely because he has undertaken to supply the public with an apparently useful and desirable product, attended with a known but apparently reasonable risk.

Restatement (Second) of Torts §402A, comment k (1965)  (emphasis added).  As you can see from the highlighted language, comment k recognizes that some products – drugs and medical devices in particular – are “unavoidably unsafe” and therefore not defective if properly prepared and accompanied by an adequate warning.  Most courts to have considered the issue have interpreted comment k to mean that manufacturers do not face strict liability for properly manufactured prescription drugs that are accompanied by adequate warnings.  That is true in Washington.  Young v. Key Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 922 P.2d 59, 63 (Wash. 1996) (under comment k, a prescription drug manufacturer is liable “only if it failed to warn of a defect of which it either knew or should have known . . . it is liable in negligence and not in strict liability”).Continue Reading No Error With Comment k Jury Instruction

Yes, we’re well aware of the latest development in the Pelvic Mesh MDL.  See Mullins v. Ethicon, Inc., C.A. No. 2:12-cv-02952, slip op. (S.D.W. Va. Aug. 4, 2015).  However, due to Reed Smith’s Pelvic Mesh representations, we’re constrained in what we can say.  We’ll just have to let prior, non-Mesh posts speak for us…

On the Drug and Device Law Son’s 13th birthday, back in 2008, we reflected on the contrast between his experience as a Philly sports fan versus that of a 13 year old in Boston.  Our son had no idea what a sports championship looked like.  Philly had not hoisted a banner since Moses Malone led the Sixers to the “Fo Five Fo” payoff run in 1983.  But a 13 year old New Englander probably had come to assume championships as a birthright.  The Celtics had a parade that Spring, the Patriots had won three Super Bowls (one against the Eagles), and even the Sawcks, who had dashed the hopes of the region for four score and six years, had managed to break the curse of the Babe and win the World Series in 2004 and 2007.  (In the 1915 World Series, the Red Sox demolished … Philadelphia.)  The Bruins had not won a championship in that 13 year period, but they would soon.

The Boston-Philly rivalry is an old one, and more one-sided than makes sense.  Even a Penn professor, Digby Baltzell, acknowledged that Boston seemed to overachieve while Philly persistently underachieved.  He thought that the historical Puritanism of Boston pointed the way toward public proofs of accomplishment and virtue, while the Quaker roots of Philly prompted people to tend to their own gardens and steer clear of the public sphere. The theory explained why Bostonians were braggarts and Philadelphians tended toward self-disparagement.  The Puritans hanged the Quakers, and both were happy.  Of course, it is hard to imagine how these old religious differences could say much about current mores.  We know some Quakers here, but not that many. In our four years in the Boston-area, we never encountered a Puritan.  Still, there are some odd points supporting Baltzell. Boston leaders are usually home-grown, but Philly has often chased away local high-achievers (Harvard’s main library came from a Philly-area fortune) and has frequently brought in outsiders to run things.  The most consequential Philly mayor in recent times hails from NYC.  We’re not sure how this fact fits in with Baltzell’s theory, but Ben Franklin fled Beantown and ended up doing fairly well in Philly.

We have no problem liking both cities a lot.  Both have great history, great schools, great museums, and great bars.  For many key criteria, Philly comes out ahead. Philly’s citizens get abused for their supposed hostility (throwing snowballs at Santa Claus, blah-blah-blah), but have you ever tried sharing a street with Boston drivers?  Philly is much better for bike riders.  Philly’s weather is okay; Boston’s is horrible.Continue Reading Massachusetts Federal Court Applies Comment K; Rejects Pennsylvania Lance Folly

The Aredia/Zometa case of Guenther v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Inc., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50945 (M.D. Fl. Apr. 9, 2013), produced another interesting decision last week.  Not necessarily good, but interesting.  The defense moved for summary judgment on plaintiffs’ failure-to-warn-based claims for failure to satisfy the proximate causation element of the learned intermediary doctrine.  Id…

By now Restatement (Second) of Torts §402A (1965) is so old as to be thought of as somewhat antediluvian.  The American Law Institute’s unfortunate adoption of “strict liability” (sufficiently unfortunate, the ALI has done away with it except for manufacturing defect) missed a lot of product liability issues – the learned intermediary rule for one – that have become extremely widespread and important in product liability over the last 45 years.  To rectify this situation, and deal with all the issues unanticipated in 1965, the ALI in 1997 adopted what amounts to a book in and of itself:  the Restatement (Third) of Torts, Products Liability.
One place where the ALI was prescient in 1965 was in recognizing that some products had inherent risks that, no matter what, could not be designed away.  Such products, the ALI recognized, were “especially common” in the context of prescription drugs:

There are some products which, in the present state of human knowledge, are quite incapable of being made safe for their intended and ordinary use. These are especially common in the field of drugs. . . .  Such a product, properly prepared, and accompanied by proper directions and warning, is not defective, nor is it unreasonably dangerous.  The same is true of many other drugs, vaccines, and the like, many of which for this very reason cannot legally be sold except to physicians, or under the prescription of a physician. . . .  The seller of such products, again with the qualification that they are properly prepared and marketed, and proper warning is given, where the situation calls for it, is not to be held to strict liability for unfortunate consequences attending their use, merely because he has undertaken to supply the public with an apparently useful and desirable product, attended with a known but apparently reasonable risk.

Restatement (Second) of Torts §402A, comment k (1965) (emphasis added).
Comment k thus says a lot of things.  Prescription medical products – those “which for this very reason [that is, because they are “quite incapable of being made safe”] cannot legally be sold except . . . under the prescription of a physician” – aren’t “defective” unless there’s something wrong with their “preparation” or “warnings.”  Thus, the unavoidably unsafe concept is inherently incompatible with the concept of design defect because no matter what their design they are “incapable of being made safe.”Continue Reading Comment K, Some of the Way

Drug & Device Resources

Bexis’ Book

FDA-regulated products now account for an estimated one-fifth of overall economic activity in the U.S. They have also been the focus of a litigation explosion. This timely guide covers all aspects of litigation involving drugs, medical devices, vaccines and other FDA-regulated prescription products.
Learn More About This Book