Court Opinion

ID: 9613576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:18:08.289199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:21.203047
License: Public Domain

Buchanan, J.,
concurring in result:
As I understand this case, the question involved is whether the defendant failed to comply with the label and labeling sections of the Virginia Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Law, found in Title 3, Chapter 12 of the Code.
That law, in section 3-208.7 of the Code, requires that the labeling accompanying the poison (which included the pamphlet in evidence here) contain directions for use necessary and adequate for the protection of the public; and that the label on the bottle shall contain a warning necessary and adequate to prevent injury to man, vegetation and certain animals.
The court instructed the jury that in order for the plaintiffs to recover they must establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the label on the bottle did not contain a warning statement necessary and adequate to prevent injury to the orchard, and that as a consequence the injury resulted.
The jury found that necessary and adequate warning had not been given and I agree with the conclusion that the evidence was sufficient to support their verdict. No question is raised as to the amount of the verdict.
As pointed out in the majority opinion, the “directions for use’ ’ in the label on the bottle and in the pamphlet were identical. Those directions, as is patent from reading them, are hardly more than suggestive, certainly they are not explicit, as to the time for using the spray. There is nothing in the directions to indicate that harm would result if the spray was applied after the petal fall spray.
In the pamphlet, which was the first thing given to the plaintiffs to read, was the caution, “Do not use this product on bearing apple trees later than two weeks following petal fall or the first cover spray, whichever comes first.” The plaintiffs’ *866evidence is explicit, and without contradiction, that the petal fall spray was applied April 28 and the spraying with Tag was begun May 11, within the two weeks, and before the first cover spray. The caution on the label, however, read: “Do not use this product on bearing apple trees later than petal fall.” This conflict in cautions could hardly be said to constitute necessary and adequate warning.
However, the testimony'for the defendant is positive, as was its answer to interrogatories, that these cautions related only to the possibility of residue remaining on the fruit at harvest, and were not intended as any warning of what might happen to the trees if applied later.
In addition, the evidence shows that the spray was recommended to' the plaintiffs for use at the time they used it, and a vice-president of the defendant company visited the orchard while the spraying was being done (he said on May 18) and gave indication that any injury might be expected from the spraying at that time, but advised, according to plaintiffs’ evidence that another application be made.
Moreover, defendant’s assistant manager of research, the man who developed this fungicide, testified that he was surprised at the result, because he had never heard of anything like it before and “We didn’t feel it was necessary to give such a warning.” He insisted that the defoliation was not due to the spray but to the disease that the spray was meant to eradicate.
To the plaintiffs this was a new product. They did not know and were not warned of the dangers of its use when applied at the time they applied it. The defendant should have known of that danger. On the evidence the jury had a right to say that a warning was necessary, that none that was adequate had been given and that the defendant should be held liable for the damages resulting from its breach of the duty placed upon it by the statute.
Whittle, J., joins in this opinion.