Court Opinion

ID: 9474756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:07:54.750628+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:18.966965
License: Public Domain

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree that the District Court correctly applied the Iowa law of strict products liability as construed by this Court in Petty v. United States, 740 F.2d 1428 (8th Cir. 1984) (Petty II). Thus I concur in today’s decision. The case is a troubling one, however, because our decision, along with Petty II, stands for the proposition that a vaccine manufacturer can be held liable for failing to warn of a risk that was unknown (and perhaps unknowable) to the manufacturer at the time the plaintiff received the vaccine. The manufacturer’s liability apparently does not depend upon a showing that the vaccine was dangerously defective, but rather flows solely from the fact that the vaccine causes the plaintiff harm of a kind that the manufacturer has not warned against. The door thus is open for the imposition of liability based upon the plaintiff’s idiosyncratic reaction to a vaccine, *1361even if the vaccine is defect-free.1 The effect of this is to make vaccine manufacturers insurers against all adverse consequences, no matter how unforeseeable or unusual they may be, that result from the use of the vaccine.
Such a draconian rule of strict liability strikes me as being unwise, since it seems inevitable that this approach will tend to discourage the development and marketing of vaccines and other useful medicines. For example, between 1968 and 1977 more than half of the manufacturers of vaccines in the United States left the market. Recently, two manufacturers of the DTP vaccine, a vaccine for diptheria, tetanus, and pertussis, ceased production, leaving only one company to produce this crucial product. See Kitch, Common Law Threatens the Children, Virginia Law School Report 10, 11 (Spring 1985). The threat this trend poses to efforts to contain the spread of infectious disease is obvious. I believe it is high time for lawmakers in Iowa and throughout the nation to re-examine this disturbing trend in the law of strict products liability, lest the ability to produce and market beneficial vaccines be lost.
ORDER ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
Appellant having filed in this Court on July 1, 1986 a petition for rehearing with a suggestion for rehearing en banc with respect to the decision of this Court which was filed April 18,1986, 788 F.2d 1352, and the Court having given due consideration to said petition, and believing that in the orderly administration of justice the following action should be taken on the petition for rehearing addressed to the panel, it is therefore ORDERED, ADJUDGED and DECREED as follows:
(1) That the judgment dated April 18, 1986 and entered the same day in the office of the Clerk of this Court is vacated.
(2) That the case is remanded to the district court for reconsideration in light of Moore v. Vanderloo, 386 N.W 108 (Iowa April 16, 1986), and for adjudication of ap-pellee’s alternative grounds for relief which have not been ruled upon by the district court, e.g. negligence and breach of warranty. See 788 F.2d at 1355.
(3) That, upon remand the district court should make such additional findings of fact and conclusions of law that it considers appropriate.
(4) That, upon remand the district court may hold such further hearings and receive such additional evidence as it considers appropriate.
(5) That in due course the district court shall enter a fresh judgment from which any aggrieved party may take a timely appeal.
(6) That this panel reserves jurisdiction to hear and decide any further appeal or appeals in this case.
(7) That, to the extent provided above, the petition for rehearing is granted; in all other respects the petition is denied.

. An intensive, hospital-based study indicates that approximately 3.6% of all drug exposures engender an adverse reaction which requires responsive treatment. See Jick, The Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Programme, reprinted in Adverse Drug Reactions 61, 64 (D. Richards & R. Randel eds. 1972). Thus, the scope of potential liability for drug and vaccine manufacturers as a result of adverse drug reaction is enormous.