Carlin v. Superior Court
Decision Date | 30 August 1996 |
Docket Number | No. S045912,S045912 |
Citation | 13 Cal.4th 1104,56 Cal.Rptr.2d 162,920 P.2d 1347 |
Court | California Supreme Court |
Parties | , 920 P.2d 1347, 65 USLW 2187, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 14,718, 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6562, 96 Daily Journal D.A.R. 10,737 Wilma Peggy CARLIN, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Sutter County, Respondent; The UPJOHN COMPANY, Real Party In Interest. |
Wilcoxen, Callahan, Montgomery & Harbison, Callahan & Deacon, Gary B. Callahan, E.S. Deacon and Judith Clark Martin, Sacramento, for Petitioner.
Joseph L. Dunn, Costa Mesa, and Gary L. Wilson, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioner.
No appearance for Respondent.
Todd W. Kingma, Kalamazoo, MI, Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold, Michael F. Healy, Frederick D. Baker, Kirk C. Jenkins, San Francisco, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, Marie S. Woodbury and Stephen E. Scheve, Kansas City, MO, for Real Party in Interest.
Catherine I. Hanson, San Fransisco, Fred J. Hiestand, Sacramento, Marjorie E. Powell, Washington, DC, Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May, Peter W. Davis, Oakland, James C. Martin, Los Angeles, Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor, Steve Merksamer, Sacramento, John E. Mueller, Mill Valley, James C. Gross, Gene Erbin, Sacramento, Dickson, Carlson & Campillo, Hall R. Marston, Santa Monica, and David R. Venderbush, Los Angeles, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest.
In this case we address the question whether a plaintiff alleging injury from ingesting a prescription drug can state a claim against the manufacturer for strict liability and breach of warranty for failure to warn about the known or reasonably scientifically knowable dangerous propensities of its product. We conclude that she can.
I.
Plaintiff Wilma Peggy Carlin (hereafter Carlin) brought an action for damages against Upjohn for injuries she assertedly sustained from ingesting the drug Halcion, which was prescribed for her by a physician between 1987 and 1992. She claimed, as relevant here, that Upjohn was strictly liable for failing "properly to prepare and/or warn of the dangerous propensities of Halcion." She specifically alleged that Upjohn "knew that the drug Halcion was defective ... [,] that those who were prescribed Halcion and took the same would experience, and did experience, severe physical, mental, and emotional damages/injuries and yet, notwithstanding this knowledge, [it] despicably, and in willful and conscious disregard of the safety of those who were prescribed Halcion and of the plaintiff herein, without giving any notice of the defect to the purchasers of Halcion, placed and persisted in placing Halcion into the stream of commerce...." She also claimed that Upjohn was liable for breach of warranty. She alleged that it "expressly and impliedly warranted to the physicians and their health-care patients that Halcion was a prescription drug fit for the use for which it was intended and was of merchantable quality" despite the fact that the product "was unfit and unsafe for ingestion by health-care patients in light of its known propensity to cause serious side-effects, including, but not limited to, physical, mental and emotional injuries to persons ingesting Halcion...."
Upjohn demurred, alleging, inter alia, that Carlin failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action for strict liability or for breach of warranty. It argued that, under California law, no cause of action for strict liability or breach of warranty can be stated against a prescription drug manufacturer based on failure to warn. The superior court sustained the demurrer as to those causes of action without leave to amend. Carlin petitioned for a writ of mandate. The Court of Appeal issued an alternative writ of mandate; after briefing and oral argument, it issued a peremptory writ of mandate, directing the superior court to vacate its order sustaining the demurrer to the causes of action for strict liability and breach of warranty and to enter a new order overruling the demurrer. We granted review.
II.
Upjohn contends that the Court of Appeal erred in vacating the superior court's order sustaining a demurrer on Carlin's cause of action for strict liability for failure to warn. It argues that California courts have "long refused to expand the scope of potential liability of prescription pharmaceutical manufacturers beyond traditional negligence principles." Not so. In prior cases, we have expressly and repeatedly applied a strict liability standard to manufacturers of prescription drugs for failure to warn of known or reasonably scientifically knowable risks. We merely reaffirm those precedents here.
In Anderson, we summarized prior case law and outlined the general principles of strict liability as they have been applied by California courts for over three decades. (Anderson, supra, 53 Cal.3d at pp. 994-1003, 281 Cal.Rptr. 528, 810 P.2d 549.) As we explained therein, under our doctrine of strict liability, first announced in Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 57, 27 Cal.Rptr. 697, 377 P.2d 897, a manufacturer " 'is strictly liable in tort when an article he places on the market, knowing that it is to be used without inspection for defects, proves to have a defect that causes We specifically addressed the issue "whether knowledge, actual or constructive, is a component of strict liability on the failure-to-warn theory." (Anderson, supra, 53 Cal.3d at p. 990, 281 Cal.Rptr. 528, 810 P.2d 549.) We concluded that it is. "The California courts, either expressly or by implication, have to date required knowledge, actual or constructive, of potential risk or danger before imposing strict liability for a failure to warn." (Id. at p. 991, 281 Cal.Rptr. 528, 810 P.2d 549) We affirmed that "California is well settled into the majority view that ... [p] ... knowledge or knowability is a component of strict liability for failure to warn." (Id. at p. 1000, 281 Cal.Rptr. 528, 810 P.2d 549.)
injury to a human being.' ... 'The purpose of such liability is to insure that the costs of injuries resulting from defective products are borne by the manufacturers that put such products on the market rather than by the injured persons who are powerless to protect themselves.' ... [p] Strict liability, however, was never intended to make the manufacturer or distributor of a product its insurer. 'From its inception, ... strict liability has never been, and is not now, absolute liability ...'... [p] Strict liability has been invoked for three types of defects--manufacturing defects, design defects, and 'warning defects,' i.e., inadequate warnings or failures to warn." (Anderson, supra, 53 Cal.3d at pp. 994-995, 281 Cal.Rptr. 528, 810 P.2d 549; see Barker v. Lull Engineering Co. (1978) 20 Cal.3d 413, 143 Cal.Rptr. 225, 573 P.2d 443.)
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