Opinion ID: 514846
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Invading the Province of the Jury

Text: 37 Texaco next argues that the trial court's references to benzene as carcinogenic throughout the instructions amounted to a virtual instruction that Texaco's warning of injury to blood-forming organs was inadequate. On this issue, Texaco submits three sources of error: Instructions Nos. 6 and 23, and the verdict form. Instruction No. 6, the stairstep guide, reads in part as follows: 38 On the other hand, in the first step, if you find both that benzene was the cause of Mason's leukemia, and that it was Texaco's benzene, you would proceed to answer the next issue, which is the state of the scientific knowledge to a reasonable degree of probable certainty in the time period of Mason's exposure to benzene. If you cannot find by a preponderance of the evidence that such scientific knowledge existed concerning a dangerous propensity of benzene to cause carcinogenic (cancerous) blood disease at the time of Mason's exposure, then your deliberations would cease and your verdict should be for the defendant. If you find that such scientific knowledge did exist to the extent that Texaco either knew it, or should reasonably have known about it, prior to and during Mason's exposure, then you would proceed to decide the next or third issue. 39 Such third issue would cause you to decide whether any or all actions taken by Texaco were sufficient and adequate to reasonably inform and warn its immediate purchaser of such dangerous carcinogenic propensity of benzene, and safety precautions to avoid exposure, and to take reasonable measures to determine that such purchaser was capable of warning others in the chain of distribution to ultimate consumers. Should you find that Texaco fulfilled and discharged its legal duty to warn and take reasonable steps to see that its distributor knew and complied with its duty to inform, then you would return a verdict for defendant Texaco. On the other hand, should you find by a preponderance of the evidence that the warnings were inadequate, defendant Texaco would be negligent, and you would then consider whether such negligence directly caused, wholly or in part, Mason's leukemia. 40 (Emphasis added.) 41 Instruction No. 23, the trial court's comment on the evidence, structured the dispute as to when benzene became recognized as a cause of cancerous blood diseases. The instruction reads in part: 42 A further comment of the Court may be helpful in your decision on the existence of the state of scientific knowledge and defendant Texaco's duty to warn. Actually, on the basis of the evidence of scientific knowledge, two factors or elements of knowledge have been shown to exist. First, there is the dispute over whether and when benzene became recognized as a leukemia source, i.e., a cause of cancerous blood diseases; and secondly, at what level of exposure does the danger exist. 43 (Emphasis added.) The verdict form reads in part as follows: 44 4. Do you find by a preponderance of the evidence that the actions taken by Texaco were insufficient and inadequate to warn Texaco's immediate purchaser of the dangerous carcinogenic propensity of benzene? Yes X No 45