Opinion ID: 613359
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Instruction Properly Tracked FIFRA

Text: DuPont alleges that, even if FIFRA does not preempt Plaintiffs’ failure to warn claims, the district court’s Jury Instructions 30, 33, and 34 did not properly 8 track FIFRA requirements. To begin with, Instructions 30 and 33 were not required to track FIFRA. Instruction 34 explained that Plaintiffs allege that DuPont violated the Idaho Pesticide and Chemigation Act. Idaho Code § 22-3401 et seq. The Idaho Pesticide and Chemigation Act claim does impose a labeling requirement, so the jury instruction must be “equivalent to, and fully consistent with, FIFRA’s misbranding provisions.” Bates, 544 U.S. at 447. The instruction need not, however, be “phrased in the identical language as its corresponding FIFRA requirement.” Id. at 454 (emphasis in original). Jury Instruction 34 is fully consistent with FIFRA since it sufficiently tracks FIFRA’s own requirements. The district court did not err in instructing the jury on Plaintiffs’ failure to warn claims. 2. Actual Knowledge and Sophisticated Purchaser Defenses DuPont argues that the district court erred in not instructing the jury on the failure to warn defenses of actual knowledge of danger and sophisticated purchaser. In Puckett v. Oakfabco, Inc., 979 P.2d 1174 (Idaho 1999), the court explained that “where the undisputed facts lead to only one reasonable conclusion the court may rule as a matter of law. . . .[t]he question becomes whether the danger involved is so obvious that it is unreasonable to impose on the manufacturer a duty to warn.” Id. at 1182 (internal quotation omitted). 9 Here, there were endless disputed facts that did not lead to only one reasonable conclusion that, as a matter of law, Oust’s danger was “so obvious” that DuPont should have no duty to warn, or that the government had actual knowledge. Under Puckett, if there are factual disputes as to these issues, the jury comparatively apportions fault for the non-consumer plaintiff’s injuries between the defendants. This apportionment is also required by Idaho Code § 6-1405(2)(b). The district court instructed the jury on comparative allocation of fault for Plaintiffs’ failure to warn claims, which is what Idaho law requires. The district court did not abuse its discretion in not providing more. DuPont also argues that the jury should have been instructed on the learned intermediary and sophisticated purchaser doctrines. In Sliman v. Alum. Co. of Am., 731 P.2d 1267, 1270–71 (Idaho 1986), the court explained that “in some circumstances a supplier positioned on the commercial chain remote from the ultimate consumer may fulfill its duty to warn by adequately warning an intermediary.” The court provided two examples. First, a “doctor stands as a learned intermediary between the manufacturer and the ultimate consumer.” Id. at 1271 (internal quotation omitted). Second, a “bulk supplier, one who sells a product to another manufacturer or distributor who in turn packages and sells the product to the public,” may also invoke the defense. Id. The facts of this case 10 present neither example noted by the Idaho supreme court in Sliman, nor a situation so analogous that the district court can be said to have abused its discretion by not extending the principle. Both of the Sliman examples involve voluntary purchasers of a product, which the Plaintiffs were not. And to the extent that Idaho recognizes that a manufacturer has no duty to warn a sophisticated purchaser of any inherent dangers in its product, see Mico, 546 P.2d at 61; see also Bromley v. Garey, 979 P.2d 1165, 1171 (Idaho 1999) (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 388 (1965)), any error was more probably than not harmless. Head v. Glacier N.W. Inc., 413 F.3d 1053, 1063 (9th Cir. 2005). The jury heard substantial evidence to the effect that Oust was not just inherently dangerous as an herbicide, but abnormally so. 7