Opinion ID: 74912
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Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Issues Involving Spain’s AEMLD Claim

Text: The Alabama Extended Manufacturer’s Liability Doctrine was first recognized by the Alabama Supreme Court in Atkins v. American Motors Corp., 335 So.2d 134 (Ala. 1976), and its companion case, Casrell v. Altec Indus., Inc., 335 So.2d 128 (Ala. 1976). See Wakeland v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 996 F. Supp. 1213, 1217 (S.D. Ala. 1998). To recover under the AEMLD, a plaintiff must show, among other things, that “an injury was caused by one who sold a product in a defective condition that made the product unreasonably dangerous to the ultimate user or consumer . . . .” Bell v. T.R. Miller Mill Co., Inc., __ So. 2d __ (Ala. 2000); see also Allen v. Delchamps, Inc., 624 So.2d 1065, 1068 (Ala. 1993). Under Alabama law, a product is not unreasonably dangerous unless it fails to “meet the reasonable safety expectations of an ordinary consumer, that is, an objective ordinary consumer possessed of the ordinary knowledge common to the community.” Deere & Co. v. Grose, 586 So. 2d 196, 198 (Ala. 1991) (internal marks and citations omitted); see also Casrell, 335 So. 2d at 133 (establishing “reasonable expectations” test and adopting comment i to § 402A of the 14 Restatement (Second) of Torts); Ex Parte Chevron Chemical Co., 720 So.2d 922, 927 (Ala. 1998) (“unreasonably dangerous” product does not include “a product the dangers of which the consumer could be expected to be aware of, an awareness that may be enlightened by a warning.”). “Although, under Alabama law, a jury ordinarily evaluates a plaintiff's claims that a product is defective, our review of the pertinent case law convinces us that certain products whose inherent danger is patent and obvious, do not, as a matter of law, involve defects of a sort that a jury should resolve.” Elliott v. Brunswick Corp., 903 F.2d 1505, 1507 (11th Cir. 1990). The defendants contend that cigarettes are not unreasonably dangerous as a matter of Alabama law, because the risks of smoking have been commonly known among ordinary consumers for many years.11 They point to published scientific studies from 1920 to 1962; to Austin v. State of Tennessee, 179 U.S. 343, 348, 21 S. Ct. 182 (1900), a 1900 Supreme Court case which, they contend, recognized the risks of cigarettes; and to an Alabama law, more than a century old, which restricted the use of cigarettes by minors. Spain responds that a jury should determine whether products are unreasonably dangerous, and that there is a 11 The defendants also argue that Spain failed to adequately plead a specific defect in the design or manufacture of the defendants’ products and failed to allege that at the time of manufacture a safer, practical alternative design was available which would have prevented Carolyn’s injury. In their brief to this Court, the defendants relegate that argument to two sentences in a footnote. 15 question as to whether in the early 1960s the general public was aware of the dangerousness of cigarettes. Carolyn started smoking sometime in 1962 and became addicted to cigarettes soon thereafter. The federally mandated warnings did not appear until well after, but there is evidence that people in general knew prior to 1962 that smoking is dangerous to health. In its 1992 opinion in Cipollone, 505 U.S. 504, 112 S. Ct. 2608, the Supreme Court recognized that the dangers of cigarettes were well-known and had been for decades.12 See id. at 508, 112 S. Ct. at 2613; accord, 12 The Court wrote: Although physicians had suspected a link between smoking and illness for centuries, the first medical studies of that connection did not appear until the 1920's. The ensuing decades saw a wide range of epidemiologic and laboratory studies on the health hazards of smoking. Thus, by the time the Surgeon General convened an advisory committee to examine the issue in 1962, there were more than 7,000 publications examining the relationship between smoking and health. In 1964, the advisory committee issued its report, which stated as its central conclusion: Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action. Relying in part on that report, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which had long regulated unfair and deceptive advertising practices in the cigarette industry, promulgated a new trade regulation rule. That rule, which was to take effect January 1, 1965, established that it would be a violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act to fail to disclose, clearly and prominently, in all advertising and on every pack, box, carton, or container [of cigarettes] that cigarette smoking is dangerous to health and may cause death from cancer and other diseases. Several States also moved to regulate the advertising and labeling of cigarettes. Upon a congressional request, the FTC postponed enforcement of its new regulation for six months. In July 1965, Congress enacted the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (1965 Act or Act). The 1965 Act effectively adopted half of the FTC's regulation: the Act mandated warnings on cigarette packages (§ 5(a)), but barred the requirement of such warnings in cigarette advertising (§ 5(b)). 16 Allgood, 80 F.3d at 172 (affirming district court’s alternative ruling in case involving smoker who was diagnosed with emphysema in 1986 and died in 1989 that claims based on failure to warn were barred because smoking risks were common knowledge; observing that “[l]ike the dangers of alcohol consumption, the dangers of cigarette smoking have long been known to the community”); Roysdon v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 849 F.2d 230, 236 (6th Cir. 1988) (affirming district court ruling that as of 1974, the relevant date in that case, knowledge of the risks of cigarette smoking was widespread and precluded existence of a jury question on whether cigarettes are unreasonably dangerous ). Moreover, the Report of the Task Force on Tobacco Litigation Submitted to Governor James and Attorney General Sessions, 27 Cumb. L. Rev. 577 (1996) stated, “Virtually every smoker in Alabama has known (or at least should have known) for many years that cigarettes are dangerous.” Id. at 590. But neither the Allgood nor the Royston decision involved Alabama law, and the Alabama Supreme Court is not bound by those decisions anyway. There is no decision of the Alabama Supreme Court close enough on point to remove our uncertainty about how that Court will decide the issue when it is presented, as it Cipollone, 505 U.S. at 513-14, 112 S.Ct. at 2615-16 (footnotes and internal citations omitted). The smoker in the Cipollone case began smoking in 1942 and died in 1984. See id. at 508, 112 S. Ct. at 2613. 17 inevitably will be in some case. Moreover, the answer to this question is potentially dispositive of the AEMLD claim, and could render unnecessary any decision by this Court on the federal preemption issues relating to that claim. For these reasons, and because we are certifying the statute of limitations and rule of repose issues to that Court anyway, we deem it prudent to send as well the question of whether cigarettes are unreasonably dangerous as a matter of Alabama law, both before and after the federally mandated warnings appeared.