Court Opinion

ID: 9496230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:21:02.976111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:26.410655
License: Public Domain

LUTTIG, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the judgment of the court. I do not fully join the majority opinion, however, for the same reasons that I dissent from the companion case in 02-1351. Again, the majority would have it that Sabin IV does not present binding law for this appeal. Again, I disagree. However, I join the judgment of the court in this case for the straightforward reason that SLU failed to proffer evidence of proximate causation sufficient to satisfy the Missouri tort standards.
In contrast to the companion case, the defendant here is being sued not for its conduct as an alleged defective product-approver, but for its conduct as an alleged defective product manufacturer. The straightforward defective product manufacturing proximate cause analysis therefore applies to this case. See Nesselrode v. Executive Beechcraft, Inc., 707 S.W.2d 371, 375-76 (Mo.1986) (en banc) (holding that the plaintiff in a product manufacturing defect case must prove the defect caused his injuries by proving that had the product been defect-free he would not have been injured).
Here, the defect in question is the defective manufacture of the vaccine. As the majority well points out, SLU proffered no evidence that the vaccine, had it been defect-free, would not have caused Danny Callahan’s injuries. As such, SLU failed to create a genuine issue as to that central proximate cause question, without which it cannot survive appellee’s summary judgment motion.
For these reasons I too would affirm the district court’s judgment in this case.