Court Opinion

ID: 9564478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:01:31.740844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:27.388950
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
Juan (“Johnnie”) Macias, a 14-year-old boy who alleged that he became legally blind from exposure to malathion during aerial spraying by the State of California (State), charged that defendant manufacturers and distributors of the pesticide knew the State did not provide complete and accurate health and safety warnings to the public. He contends that defendants had a duty to warn and failed to discharge that duty.
The majority reject the claim, concluding that because the aerial spraying was conducted under the Emergency Services Act (Gov. Code, § 8550), defendants as a matter of law had no duty to undertake any efforts whatever to assure that accurate health warnings reached the public. Indeed, they *861characterize possible remedial measures that might have been taken by defendants as inappropriate “second-guess[ing]” of the State and “interfer[ing] with” its efforts to deal with the emergency caused by the Mediterranean fruit fly infestation. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 858].)
To the majority, recognizing a duty to warn on the part of the manufacturers and distributors “contains the seeds of a[ ] . . . disturbing scenario.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 859.) As they describe the situation: “In response to the declared emergency, the State here had designed and promulgated a detailed public-outreach program containing, inter alia, certain health information. Its duty was to convey the most complete and accurate health information practicable to the affected citizens. [Citation.] It is probably no exaggeration to state that the program’s ultimate success depended upon the public’s complete trust and confidence in the medical information contained in the State’s official findings and public pronouncements.” (Ibid., italics added.) The majority posit that if the public had also received notices from defendants, the eradication program “might have been fatally compromised.” (Ibid.) Any intervention by the defendants could have “place[d] in jeopardy the lives, property, and resources of the citizens of California.” (Id. at p. 860.)
The flaw in the majority’s reasoning becomes obvious if we merely look to the allegations in this action, which we must assume to be true for the purposes of review. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 847, fn. 1.) The State apparently conformed to the formal statutory protocol for public outreach during a pest eradication project, to the extent of providing some notice to residents and physicians practicing in the area. (Food & Agr. Code, §§ 5771-5778.) The notice provided did not, however, contain a warning of the health and safety precautions that should be taken, despite the statutory requirement that it do so. (Id., § 5775.) The State also failed to comply with the condition of a “special local needs registration” it obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that it give the public prior notification of the precautions listed on the product label.
Thus, the notice disseminated by the State in leaflets and by other media to the public did not inform the public that malathion, as described on the EPA label, is “Harmful by swallowing, inhalation or skin contact.” It did not warn that skin or eyes should be flushed with water if contacted by malathion. Instead, it assured the public there was “No Health Hazard. . . .” It even affirmatively suggested that contact with the insecticide was innocuous: “in Europe, it is used by physicians to treat head lice in children.”
It appears, then, that the State did not meet its duty to “convey the most complete and accurate health information” to the public. Instead, it omitted *862health and safety warnings—perhaps in a deliberate effort to allay public anxiety and avoid public opposition to aerial spraying of malathion over residential areas, perhaps through bureaucratic incompetence or mere inadvertence. In so doing, it violated express state and federal requirements. It thereby “placed in jeopardy” if not “the lives, property and resources of the citizens of the California,” then at least the eyesight of Johnnie Macias. In these circumstances, I cannot conclude as a matter of law that there was no duty on the part of defendants—who knew that the State’s warnings were incomplete and misleading—to take some remedial measures, notwithstanding the declared state of emergency.1
In evaluating the scope of a manufacturer’s common law duty to warn, numerous courts—including this court—have turned to the factors set forth in section 388 of the Restatement Second of Torts, which relates to the liability of a supplier of a product for negligent failure to warn. Under that section, a manufacturer that supplies a product either directly or through a third party for another’s use may be liable to those whom the manufacturer should expect to use the product or be endangered by its probable use, if the manufacturer (1) knows or has reason to know that the product is likely to be dangerous for its intended use; (2) has no reason to believe that those for whose use the product is supplied will realize its dangerous condition; and (3) fails to exercise reasonable care to inform them of its dangerous condition. (Stevens v. Parke, Davis & Co. (1973) 9 Cal.3d 51, 64-65 [107 Cal.Rptr. 45 , 507 P.2d 653, 94 A.L.R.3d 1059] [adopting and applying Rest.2d Torts, § 388, in an action against a drug manufacturer for negligent failure to warn]; accord, Selma Pressure Treating Co. v. Osmose Wood Preserving Co. (1990) 221 Cal.App.3d 1601, 1621 [271 Cal.Rptr. 596].) “Giving to the third person through whom the [product] is supplied all the information necessary to its safe use is not in all cases sufficient to relieve the supplier from liability. . . . The question remains whether this method gives a reasonable assurance that the information will reach those whose safety depends on their having it.” (Rest.2d Torts, § 388, com. n.) Whether a manufacturer has satisfied its duty to warn the ultimate user (or bystander) by warnings to the immediate purchaser is determined by a rule of reasonableness under the circumstances. (Persons v. Salomon North America, Inc. (1990) 217 Cal.App.3d 168, 175 [265 Cal.Rptr. 773]; Adkins v. GAP Corp. (6th Cir. 1991) 923 F.2d 1225, 1231 [actual knowledge of manufacturer *863“belies any claim of reasonable reliance upon the supposition that since [the intermediary] knew of the hazards of asbestos, it would warn its employees.”].) The required balancing of considerations is for the trier of fact unless reasonable minds could not differ.
There is also considerable, and I believe persuasive, case authority holding that private manufacturers have a continuing duty to the public notwithstanding the presence of a governmental intermediary with independent statutory responsibilities. (Reyes v. Wyeth Laboratories (5th Cir. 1974) 498 F.2d 1264; Davis v. Wyeth Laboratories, Inc. (9th Cir. 1968) 399 F.2d 121; Mazur v. Merck & Co., Inc. (3d Cir. 1992) 964 F.2d 1348; Allison v. Merck and Co., Inc. (1994) 110 Nev. 762 [878 P.2d 948].) These cases hold that the existence of a governmental duty to warn does not displace a manufacturer’s common law duty. Thus, Allison holds that a drug manufacturer has a duty to warn the ultimate recipients of measles vaccines in a mass immunization effort, notwithstanding the fact that it supplied the product to the Center for Disease Control: “ ‘We recognize that the government has attempted to statutorily assume ... the duty to warn the vaccinee, however, we do not find that this . . . thereby relieves the manufacturer from liability for any resulting inadequacy of the warning.’ ” (878 P.2d at p. 959, quoting Petty v. United States (8th Cir. 1984) 740 F.2d 1428, 1440.)
No previous case has found that a manufacturer’s duty to warn is abrogated simply because a governmental entity has declared a state of emergency. The legislative policy that the majority purport to advance in crafting this new exception to the common law duty to warn is articulated as “provid[ing] the greatest amount of information practicable to affected citizens” during a pest eradication effort. (Food & Agr. Code, § 5029, subd. (b).) I am not persuaded this goal is best served by holding private commercial companies that sell pesticides or other products to the State have no duty to take any remedial action even when they know the State is not providing adequate or accurate health and safety information about their products.
To be sure, defendants are not required to “second-guess” or “interfere with” the State’s legitimate exercise of its emergency powers. As this case demonstrates, however, the interest in an informed public militates against the total abrogation of a defendant’s common law duty when it knows that the State is not following legal requirements. In a state of emergency, the possibility of error or miscalculation by an overzealous—or simply uninformed—state official may be magnified. Manufacturers and distributors that know that the State has in fact failed to give adequate notice of public health risks may be in the best position to assure that complete and accurate information is provided. The appropriate standard is one of reasonableness, *864and allows any number of steps a manufacturer might reasonably be expected to undertake that would not impede the State’s ability to provide clear and adequate public warnings.
Thus, defendants could have contacted the responsible State officials to ensure that they were informed of the situation and hence aware of the need to disseminate different or additional warnings. Alternatively, defendants could have supplied the State with a preprinted flyer or leaflet containing accurate product warnings for mass distribution. (See Whitehead v. St. Joe Lead Co., Inc. (3d Cir. 1984) 729 F.2d 238, 247; Macrie v. SDS Biotech Corp. (1993) 267 N.J.Super. 34 [630 A.2d 805, 810-811].) Other cases point to the possibility of contractually obligating an intermediate purchaser to provide accurate instructions or warnings to subsequent users. (See Donahue v. Phillips Petroleum Co. (8th Cir. 1989) 866 F.2d 1008, 1011 [“Phillips made no effort to discharge its obligation by contracting with its purchaser to ensure that adequate warnings ultimately reach the consumer.”]; see also Bryant v. Technical Research Co. (9th Cir. 1981) 654 F.2d 1337, 1347-1348; Mazur v. Merck & Co., Inc., supra, 964 F.2d at p. 1365.)
Defendants could also have undertaken reasonable measures to directly inform the public, in advance of aerial spraying, of the true health dangers from exposure to malathion. The court in Whitehead refers to inexpensive direct warnings by way of “joint information sessions.” (Whitehead v. St. Joe Lead Co., Inc., supra, 729 F.2d at p. 247.) Similarly, in this case it might have been feasible to hold a press conference, independently or with state officials, to inform the public of the advisability of staying indoors during spraying or, if exposed, of taking the simple precautions of promptly washing malathion spray from the skin or eyes and contacting a physician if irritation from exposure to the skin or eyes persisted.
Contrary to the vision of “complete chaos” conjured by the majority (maj. opn., ante, p. 859), reasonable measures of this kind were unlikely to have interfered with the State’s ability to carry out an effective eradication program or its obligation to provide clear and effective warnings to the public of the very same health risks. They would, on the contrary, be fully consistent with the legislative intent to provide affected citizens with the “greatest amount of information practicable.” (Food & Agr. Code, § 5029, subd. (b).) Of course, it is for the trier of fact to determine, in light of all the evidence, whether these or other measures were feasible and reasonable under the totality of the circumstances.
*865In my view, the question whether defendants’ conduct satisfied their common law duty to provide reasonable warnings in light of all the circumstances turns on disputed issues of fact.2 Accordingly, the matter could not properly be resolved on summary judgment. I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

It is a gross exaggeration to liken the state of emergency here to the imminent threat of rising floodwaters in an “overburdened reservoir” hypothesized by the majority. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 859.) Spraying of malathion in California in response to Mediterranean fruit fly infestations has continued periodically since 1980; it was not a crisis that demanded split-second decisionmaking. In any event, the standard is reasonableness and feasibility under the circumstances. Surely a trier of fact can distinguish between the threat of raging floodwaters and ongoing efforts to eradicate a fly.

I would also hold that because plaintiffs’ failure-to-wam claim is not predicated on any alleged deficiency in the EPA-approved labeling, it is not preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) (7 U.S.C. § 136v(b)). (See Macrie v. SDS Biotech Corp., supra, 630 A.2d at p. 813 [summary judgment could not be sustained on the basis of federal preemption: “consistently with FIFRA, State law may require a pesticide manufacturer like defendant to take reasonable steps, either through instructions to its customers or directly through its own efforts, to assure that persons, like plaintiffs, . . . will be warned of [the pesticide’s] dangers’’]; New York State Pesticide Coalition v. Jorling (2d Cir. 1989) 874 F.2d 115.)