Opinion ID: 1232223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Failure-to-warn Theory of Strict Liability.

Text: Though not without some history in this court, the theory of strict liability for failure to warn has been forged principally in the lower courts. Canifax v. Hercules Powder Co. (1965) 237 Cal. App.2d 44, 52-53 [46 Cal. Rptr. 552], was the first case in California to recognize that strict liability can be based on the absence of a warning which creates an unreasonable risk to the consumer. Drawing on the Restatement Second of Torts section 402A, comment j, [8] Canifax held that a product, although faultlessly made, may nevertheless be deemed `defective' under the rule and subject the supplier thereof to strict liability if it is unreasonably dangerous to place the product in the hands of a user without a suitable warning and the product is supplied and no warning is given. (237 Cal. App.2d at p. 53.) In Canifax, a wholesaler of dynamite fuse had failed to give warning of the burning time of the fuse. In Cavers v. Cushman Motor Sales, Inc. (1979) 95 Cal. App.3d 338 [157 Cal. Rptr. 142], the first case in which failure to warn was the sole theory of liability, the appellate court approved the instruction that a golf cart, otherwise properly manufactured, could be defective if no warning was given of the cart's propensity to tip over when turning and if the absence of the warning rendered the product substantially dangerous to the user. Cavers was principally concerned with the propriety of the term substantially dangerous and concluded that it is necessary to weigh the degree of danger involved when determining whether a warning defect exists. The standard suggested in Cavers to govern this weighing process was similar to that provided for the jury's risk/benefit analysis in Barker ( supra, 20 Cal.3d at p. 431). [9] Cavers also held by implication that the requirement of giving warnings was not limited to unavoidably dangerous or unsafe products, a rule later stated expressly in Gonzales v. Carmenita Ford Truck Sales, Inc. (1987) 192 Cal. App.3d 1143 [238 Cal. Rptr. 18], where the plaintiff's injuries resulted from a manufacturer's failure to give warnings about the need, frequency, and method of adjusting air brakes. Between Canifax and Gonzales, a number of cases recognized that a failure to give adequate warnings might subject a manufacturer or distributor to strict liability when it knew or should have known of the danger and the necessity of warnings to ensure safe use. ( Rosburg v. Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co. (1986) 181 Cal. App.3d 726, 734 [226 Cal. Rptr. 299] [breast implant]; Blackwell v. Phelps Dodge Corp. (1984) 157 Cal. App.3d 372, 377 [203 Cal. Rptr. 706] [tank car]; Lunghi v. Clark Equipment Co. (1984) 153 Cal. App.3d 485, 493-494 [200 Cal. Rptr. 387] [front-end loader]; DeLeon v. Commercial Manufacturing & Supply Co. (1983) 148 Cal. App.3d 336, 343 [195 Cal. Rptr. 867] [cannery bin]; Garman v. Magic Chef, Inc. (1981) 117 Cal. App.3d 634, 638 [173 Cal. Rptr. 20] [gas stove]; Burke v. Almaden Vineyards, Inc. (1978) 86 Cal. App.3d 768, 772 [150 Cal. Rptr. 419] [plastic cork]; Midgley v. S.S. Kresge Co. (1976) 55 Cal. App.3d 67, 71-75 [127 Cal. Rptr. 217] [telescope]; Dosier v. Wilcox-Crittendon Co. (1975) 45 Cal. App.3d 74 [119 Cal. Rptr. 135] [hook device]; Barth v. B.F. Goodrich Tire Co. (1968) 265 Cal. App.2d 228, 244-245 [71 Cal. Rptr. 306] [tire]; Casetta v. United States Rubber Co. (1968) 260 Cal. App.2d 792, 816-818 [67 Cal. Rptr. 645] [tire]; see 6 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (9th ed. 1988) Torts, §§ 1265-1270, pp. 707-715.) These cases did not address the specific factual question whether or not the manufacturer or distributor knew or should have known of the risks involved in the products, either because the nature of the product or the risk involved made such a discussion unnecessary or because the plaintiff limited the action to risks about which the manufacturer/distributor obviously knew or should have known. Moreover, the appellate courts in these same cases did not discuss knowledge or knowability as a component of the failure to warn theory of strict liability. However, a knowledge or knowability component clearly was included as an implicit condition of strict liability. In that regard, California was in accord with authorities in a majority of other states. [10] Only when the danger to be warned against was unknowable did the knowledge component of the failure-to-warn theory come into focus. Such cases made it apparent that eliminating the knowledge component had the effect of turning strict liability into absolute liability. The first California case to discuss knowledge or knowability as a condition of strict liability in the failure to warn context was Oakes v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc., supra, 272 Cal. App.2d 645. Du Pont had distributed weed-killing spray products containing ingredients that proved dangerous to some human beings. Accepting the premise that knowledge or knowability was a factor in the obligation to warn under the Restatement Second of Torts (§ 402A, com. j.), the court stated: The rationale of the strict liability rule is that the injured person is helpless to protect himself from the actually defective product. It is only reasonable therefore that as between the injured user and the one who places the product on the market the latter should bear the loss. The same rationale would apply to the marketing of a product which contains an ingredient which the manufacturer knows or should know `by the application of reasonable developed human skill and foresight' is dangerous. But, in the view of this court, that is where the reason for the rule ceases and the rule of `strict' liability itself should stop. To exact an obligation to warn the user of unknown and unknowable allergies, sensitivities and idiosyncrasies would be for the courts to recast the manufacturer in the role of an insurer beyond any reasonable application of the rationale expressed above. (272 Cal. App.2d at pp. 650-651.) In Christofferson v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (1971) 15 Cal. App.3d 75 [92 Cal. Rptr. 825, 53 A.L.R.3d 292], the trial court had instructed that the manufacturer of a prescription drug was strictly liable for failure to warn of side effects which should or could have been foreseen, but had refused to instruct on liability for unforeseeable side effects. The Court of Appeal affirmed. When the issue of unknowable risks first came before us, we noted the issue without deciding it. ( Finn v. G.D. Searle & Co., supra, 35 Cal.3d 691 (hereafter Finn ).) In Finn, we observed that the decisions in other states had developed two lines of cases: one imposes strict liability for a failure to warn regardless of defendant's knowledge or ability to know of the side-effect-causing injury ..., and one focuses first on the manufacturer's actual or constructive knowledge. ( Id. at p. 699.) In Finn we did not decide the issue because the plaintiff expressly argued that the defendant drug manufacturer's duty to warn extended only to effects which were or should have been known. Consistent with the plaintiff's argument, the trial court had given jury instructions regarding the reasonableness of the manufacturer's conduct in failing to warn, rather than on strict liability. [11] Finn involved prescription drugs, as did our next important case on the issue of strict liability, Brown v. Superior Court, supra, 44 Cal.3d 1049 (hereafter Brown ). In Brown, we held that prescription drug manufacturers are exempt from strict liability for design defects  we refused to apply the standards for defective design set out in Barker ( supra, 20 Cal.3d 413). The procedural posture of Brown as the case reached this court required us to address that question and, in addition, the plaintiff's contention that a manufacturer's strict liability for failure to warn should extend to unknowable risks of harm. The trial court had ruled before trial that the defendants could not be held strictly liable for an alleged design defect in the drug at issue but could be held strictly liable for their failure to warn of the drug's known or knowable side effects. This pretrial ruling in Brown, insofar as it recognized strict liability for failure to warn of known or knowable side effects, was not questioned by the plaintiff on appeal. Instead, the plaintiff wanted the appellate court to extend the ruling to unknowable risks. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's ruling. We did the same. Discussing the issue that was before us in Brown  liability for failure to warn of unknowable risks  we reviewed the authorities on the issue whether strict liability for failure to warn presupposes actual or constructive knowledge of the risk by the manufacturer. We noted the split of authority and that California precedent favors the majority view, which requires knowability. [12] Then, applying the policy principles that had prompted the court to exempt prescription drugs from the Barker tests for defective design, we refused to extend strict liability to the failure to warn of risks that were unknowable at the time of distribution. As we stated, if a manufacturer could not count on limiting its liability to risks that were known or knowable at the time of manufacture or distribution, it would be discouraged from developing new and improved products for fear that later significant advances in scientific knowledge would increase its liability. ( Brown, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 1066.) We concluded, in accord with almost all our sister states that have considered the issue, that a manufacturer is not strictly liable for injuries caused by a prescription drug so long as it was properly prepared and accompanied by warnings of its dangerous propensities that were either known or reasonably scientifically knowable at the time of distribution. Our decision did not affect the continued validity of the trial court's pretrial ruling regarding liability for known and knowable risks, a reading confirmed by the caveat contained in footnote 12 of the opinion: Our conclusion does not mean, of course, that drug manufacturers are free of all liability for defective drugs. They are subject to liability for manufacturing defects, as well as under general principles of negligence, and for failure to warn of known or reasonably knowable side effects. ( Id. at p. 1069, italics added.) Vermeulen v. Superior Court ( supra, 204 Cal. App.3d 1192) and the instant case disagree on the effect of the Brown holding ( supra, 44 Cal.3d 1049) and whether the case has any application beyond the limitations of its factual setting, i.e., prescription drugs. Obviously, the holding applies only to prescription drugs. However, Brown 's logic and common sense are not limited to drugs. In recognizing the extent to which the majority rule pervades California precedents in both drug and nondrug cases, Brown clearly implied that knowledge is also a component of strict liability for failure to warn in cases other than prescription drug cases. (5a) In sum, the foregoing review of the decisions of the Courts of Appeal persuades us that California is well settled into the majority view that knowledge, actual or constructive, is a requisite for strict liability for failure to warn and that Brown, supra, 44 Cal.3d 1049, if not directly, at least by implication, reaffirms that position. However, even if we are implying too much from the language in Brown ( supra, 44 Cal.3d 1049), the fact remains that we are now squarely faced with the issue of knowledge and knowability in strict liability for failure to warn in other than the drug context. Whatever the ambiguity of Brown, we hereby adopt the requirement, as propounded by the Restatement Second of Torts and acknowledged by the lower courts of this state and the majority of jurisdictions, that knowledge or knowability is a component of strict liability for failure to warn. One of the guiding principles of the strict liability doctrine was to relieve a plaintiff of the evidentiary burdens inherent in a negligence cause of action. ( Cronin, supra, 8 Cal.3d at p. 133.) Indeed, it was the limitations of negligence theories that prompted the development and expansion of the doctrine. The proponents of the minority rule, including the Court of Appeal in this case, argue that the knowability requirement, and admission of state-of-the-art evidence, improperly infuse negligence concepts into strict liability cases by directing the trier of fact's attention to the conduct of the manufacturer or distributor rather than to the condition of the product. Similar claims have been made as to other aspects of strict liability, sometimes resulting in limitations on the doctrine and sometimes not. In Cronin, for example, we concluded that the unreasonably dangerous element, which the Restatement Second of Torts had introduced into the definition of a defective product, should not be incorporated into a plaintiff's burden of proof in a product liability action because it rings of negligence (8 Cal.3d at pp. 132-133). Another indication of the concern to eliminate negligence principles is the question raised by the Committee on Standard Jury Instructions regarding the phrase in the exercise of reasonable care in the standard instruction on strict liability for failure to warn. (See Use Note, BAJI No. 9.00.7 [Some members believe that such phrase introduces an element of negligence into a strict liability case.].) However, the claim that a particular component rings of or sounds in negligence has not precluded its acceptance in the context of strict liability. (6) On the same day that we decided Cronin, for example, we also held that, while ordinary contributory negligence does not bar recovery in strict liability, the plaintiff's negligence is a defense when it consists of assumption of the risk. ( Luque v. McLean (1972) 8 Cal.3d 136, 145 [104 Cal. Rptr. 443, 501 P.2d 1163]; Rest.2d Torts, supra, § 402A, com. b.) In Cavers v. Cushman Motor Sales, supra, 95 Cal. App.3d 338, 348-349, as noted above ( ante, p. 996), the Court of Appeal refused to eliminate the plaintiff's burden to prove that the manufacturer's failure to warn rendered the golf cart substantially dangerous to the user, rejecting the claim that the phrase substantially dangerous, like the phrase unreasonably dangerous in Cronin ( supra, 8 Cal.3d at p. 132), impermissibly increased the plaintiff's burden to prove the product defective. (7) We had also concluded, in Daly v. General Motors Corp., supra, 20 Cal.3d 725, that the principles of comparative negligence apply to actions founded on strict products liability. We recognized that the doctrine of strict liability was a judicial creation and, in reaching our conclusion, we blended or accommodated the theoretical and semantic distinctions between the twin principles of strict products liability and traditional negligence. ( Id. at p. 734.) (8) Finally, in Barker, supra, 20 Cal.3d 413, this court rejected the claim that the risk/benefit test was unacceptable because it introduced an element which rings of negligence into the determination of design defect. Consequently, we held that the risk/benefit test was not inconsistent with our decision in Cronin, supra, 8 Cal.3d 121. The risk/benefit test directs the jury to weigh or balance a number of factors and sets out a list of competing considerations for the jury to evaluate in determining the existence of a design defect. We noted that, by shifting the burden of proof to the manufacturer, the risk/benefit standard should lighten the plaintiff's burden in conformity with our Greenman and Cronin decisions. Furthermore, we added that an instruction advising the jury to weigh benefits and risks is not simply the equivalent of an instruction which requires the jury to determine whether the manufacturer was negligent in designing the product [citation]. It is true, of course, that in many cases proof that a product is defective in design may also demonstrate that the manufacturer was negligent in choosing such a design. As we have indicated, however, in a strict liability case, as contrasted with a negligent design action, the jury's focus is properly directed to the condition of the product itself, and not to the reasonableness of the manufacturer's conduct. (20 Cal.3d at p. 434.) (5b) As these cases illustrate, the strict liability doctrine has incorporated some well-settled rules from the law of negligence and has survived judicial challenges asserting that such incorporation violates the fundamental principles of the doctrine. It may also be true that the warning defect theory is rooted in negligence to a greater extent than are the manufacturing  or design-defect theories. The warning defect relates to a failure extraneous to the product itself. Thus, while a manufacturing or design defect can be evaluated without reference to the conduct of the manufacturer (see Barker, supra, 20 Cal.3d 413), the giving of a warning cannot. The latter necessarily requires the communicating of something to someone. How can one warn of something that is unknowable? If every product that has no warning were defective per se and for that reason subject to strict liability, the mere fact of injury by an unlabelled product would automatically permit recovery. That is not, and has never been, the purpose and goal of the failure-to-warn theory of strict liability. Further, if a warning automatically precluded liability in every case, a manufacturer or distributor could easily escape liability with overly broad, and thus practically useless, warnings. (See Finn, supra, 35 Cal.3d at p. 701.) We therefore reject the contention that every reference to a feature shared with theories of negligence can serve to defeat limitations on the doctrine of strict liability. (9) Furthermore, despite its roots in negligence, failure to warn in strict liability differs markedly from failure to warn in the negligence context. Negligence law in a failure-to-warn case requires a plaintiff to prove that a manufacturer or distributor did not warn of a particular risk for reasons which fell below the acceptable standard of care, i.e., what a reasonably prudent manufacturer would have known and warned about. Strict liability is not concerned with the standard of due care or the reasonableness of a manufacturer's conduct. The rules of strict liability require a plaintiff to prove only that the defendant did not adequately warn of a particular risk that was known or knowable in light of the generally recognized and prevailing best scientific and medical knowledge available at the time of manufacture and distribution. [13] Thus, in strict liability, as opposed to negligence, the reasonableness of the defendant's failure to warn is immaterial. Stated another way, a reasonably prudent manufacturer might reasonably decide that the risk of harm was such as not to require a warning as, for example, if the manufacturer's own testing showed a result contrary to that of others in the scientific community. Such a manufacturer might escape liability under negligence principles. In contrast, under strict liability principles the manufacturer has no such leeway; the manufacturer is liable if it failed to give warning of dangers that were known to the scientific community at the time it manufactured or distributed the product. Whatever may be reasonable from the point of view of the manufacturer, the user of the product must be given the option either to refrain from using the product at all or to use it in such a way as to minimize the degree of danger. Davis v. Wyeth Laboratories, Inc. (9th Cir.1968) 399 F.2d 121, 129-130, described the need to warn in order to provide true choice: When, in a particular case, the risk qualitatively (e.g., of death or major disability) as well as quantitatively, on balance with the end sought to be achieved, is such as to call for a true choice judgment, medical or personal, the warning must be given. [Fn. omitted.] (See also Finn, supra, 35 Cal.3d at pp. 699-700, on the kinds of warnings and their implications.) Thus, the fact that a manufacturer acted as a reasonably prudent manufacturer in deciding not to warn, while perhaps absolving the manufacturer of liability under the negligence theory, will not preclude liability under strict liability principles if the trier of fact concludes that, based on the information scientifically available to the manufacturer, the manufacturer's failure to warn rendered the product unsafe to its users. (5c) The foregoing examination of the failure-to-warn theory of strict liability in California compels the conclusion that knowability is relevant to imposition of liability under that theory. Our conclusion not only accords with precedent but also with the considerations of policy that underlie the doctrine of strict liability. We recognize that an important goal of strict liability is to spread the risks and costs of injury to those most able to bear them. [14] However, it was never the intention of the drafters of the doctrine to make the manufacturer or distributor the insurer of the safety of their products. It was never their intention to impose absolute liability.