Sutowski v. Eli Lilly & Co.

• Decision Date: 29 June 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-1142,97-1142
• Parties: , Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,296 SUTOWSKI v. ELI LILLY & COMPANY et al.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 347

82 Ohio St.3d 347

696 N.E.2d 187, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,296

SUTOWSKI v. ELI LILLY & COMPANY et al.

No. 97-1142.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted April 7, 1998.

Decided June 29, 1998.

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT

In Ohio, market-share liability is not an available theory of recovery in a products liability action.

This case comes before us as a certified question of state law from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division. In its certification order, the federal district court recounted the following:

"Petitioner June Sutowski filed the instant diversity action in federal district court naming 18 companies as party-defendants ('respondents' for purposes of this Order). Sutowski claims to have suffered damage to her reproductive system due to her in utero exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES). Sutowski asserts that each of the named defendants is either a manufacturer, a distributor, or a parent or successor corporation to a manufacturer or distributor, of DES. Her complaint includes counts consisting of strict liability under products liability, negligence under products liability, breach of warranty and market share liability.

"In response, defendant/respondent Eli Lilly and Company ('Eli Lilly') filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c). Among other things, Eli Lilly argues that judgment must be entered against Sutowski on her claim for relief under the market share theory of liability since Ohio has not recognized market share. Eli Lilly relies upon the recent decision in Kurczi v. Eli Lilly & Co. [113 F.3d 1426 (6th Cir. 1997)], in which the Sixth Circuit announced that if 'directly presented with the issue, the Ohio Supreme Court would not adopt a market-share theory of liability in DES cases.' Id. at [1435]."

Immediately preceding release of the Kurczi decision, this court decided Carrel v. Allied Products Corp. (1997), 78 Ohio St.3d 284, 677 N.E.2d 795, holding that common-law causes of action survive enactment of the Ohio Products Liability Act unless specifically abrogated by that statute's language. The Sixth Circuit did not consider Carrel when deciding Kurczi. The federal district court, believing that our decision in Carrel eroded the Kurczi analysis, certified the question presented.

Amer Cunningham Brennan Co., L.P.A., Jack Morrison, Jr. and E. Marie Wheeler, Akron; and Gary L. Himmel, Akron, for petitioner.

James J. Dillon and Kenneth A. Cohen; Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P., Robin G. Weaver and Paula B. Christ, Cleveland, for respondent Eli Lilly & Co.

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, Kim F. Bixenstine and Paul D. Koethe, Cleveland, for respondents Abbott Laboratories and McNeilab, Inc.

A. Edward Grashof and Sheila AnnMarie Moeller; Roetzel & Andress and James R. Vaughn, Akron, for respondent Dart Industries, Inc.

Nicola, Gudbranson & Cooper, Matthew T. Fitzsimmons and Thomas A. Gattozzi, Cleveland, for respondent Merck & Co., Inc.

Frost & Jacobs, Frederick J. McGavran, Grant S. Cowan, Mina J. Jefferson and Jack B. Harrison, Cincinnati, for respondent Pharmacia & Upjohn Company.

Baker & Hostetler, LLP, and Mary M. Bittence, Cleveland; and Marc S. Klein, for respondent E.R. Squibb & Sons, Inc.

Eric D. Statman; Brouse & McDowell and Sallie Conley-Lux, Akron, in support of respondents for amicus curiae, Emons Industries, Inc.

James M. Beck; and Hugh R. Young, Jr., in support of respondents for amicus curiae, Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc.

Bricker & Eckler, LLP, Randolph C. Wiseman, Cleveland, Kurtis A. Tunnell, Sarah J. DeBruin and Matthew J. Arnold, Columbus, in support of respondents for amicus curiae, The Ohio Alliance for Civil Justice.

Linda S. Woggon, Toledo, in support of respondents for amicus curiae, Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

COOK, Justice.

Pursuant to S.Ct.Prac.R. XVIII, the United States District Court certified the following question of law to this court:

"Whether market share exists in Ohio as a viable theory of liability in a DES products liability action[?]"

We respond in the negative: In Ohio, market-share liability is not an available theory of recovery in a products liability action.

MARKET-SHARE LIABILITY

DES is a form of synthetic estrogen that gained widespread use in the early 1940s. Its uses include hormone replacement during menopause, and the treatment Because DES was not patented, some two hundred to three hundred different drug companies produced DES in the years it was widely prescribed for use during pregnancy. Due to the long interval between DES use and manifestation of its effects a generation later, the great number of possible manufacturer-defendants, and the primarily generic form of the drug, many DES plaintiffs experienced difficulty identifying the particular manufacturer of the drug taken by their mothers years earlier. Note, 25 Suffolk U.L.Rev. at 1071-1072. Many manufacturers were no longer in business, medical and pharmacy records were lost or destroyed, and memories had dulled over time. Strickland & Katerndahl, An Overview of the Development of Market Share Liability (1992), 446 Practising Law Institute--Litigation 277, 281-282.

                of both senile and gonorrheal vaginitis.  By the late 1940s, DES was also being used for the treatment of certain complications of pregnancy.  Researchers in the early 1970s, however, discovered a high incidence of clear cell adenocarcinoma, a rare form of cancer, in women exposed to DES in utero.   As a result, use of DES during pregnancy ceased.  Other reproductive disorders such as a predisposition to miscarry, the injury Sutowski claims, have also been attributed to in utero DES exposure.  See, generally, Comment, Samuelson, DES, RU-486 and Deja Vu (1993), 2 J. Pharmacy & L. 56;  Note, Russell, The Causation Requirement:  Guardian of Fairness or Obstacle to Justice?--Making Sense of a Decade of DES Litigation (1991), 25 Suffolk U.L.Rev. 1071.   See, also, Grover v. Eli Lilly & Co.   (1992), 63 Ohio St.3d 756, 591 N.E.2d 696 (Petitioner's deformed reproductive organs resulted in an inability to carry her son to full term.)
                

In response to the DES plaintiff's inability to establish causation, the California Supreme Court fashioned the market-share theory of liability in its benchmark decision, Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories (1980), 26 Cal.3d 588, 163 Cal.Rptr. 132, 607 P.2d 924. In Sindell, the trial court dismissed a DES plaintiff's complaint because she was unable to identify the particular manufacturer of the drug prescribed for her mother. The supreme court reversed, resolving in the plaintiff's favor the conflict between the traditional causation requirement of tort law and the desire to insulate an innocent plaintiff from bearing the cost of injury.

The California Supreme Court determined that the theory of alternative liability was inapplicable in light of the plaintiff's inability to join all DES manufacturers in the action. Sindell, 26 Cal.3d at 598-603, 163 Cal.Rptr. at 136-139, 607 P.2d at 928-931. The court also rejected the theories of concert of action and enterprise liability. Id. at 604-606, 609-610, 163 Cal.Rptr. at 140-141, 143, 607 P.2d at 932-933, 935. Rather than affirming dismissal of the action, the Sindell majority adopted the novel theory of market-share liability proposed in a Fordham Law Review student comment. Id. at 611-613, 163 Cal.Rptr. at Recognizing that "there is a possibility that none of the five defendants in this case produced the offending substance," the California Supreme Court nonetheless justified shifting the burden of proof of causation to the defendant. Id. at 611, 163 Cal.Rptr. at 144-145, 607 P.2d at 936-937. To this end, the market-share plaintiff need only (1) identify an injury caused by a fungible product, and (2) join in the action a substantial share of the manufacturers of that product. Id., 26 Cal.3d at 610-612, 163 Cal.Rptr. at 144-145, 607 P.2d at 936-937. The burden then shifts to each defendant-manufacturer to prove that it did not make the particular injurious product. Id. Market-share liability thus enables a plaintiff who cannot identify a particular tortfeasor to sustain a tort cause of action despite an inability to show proximate causation.

                144-146, 607 P.2d at 936-938, citing Comment, Sheiner, DES and a Proposed Theory of Enterprise Liability (1978), 46 Fordham L.Rev. 963.   The court cited the following three policy considerations in favor of relieving the plaintiff of the burden of proving causation:  (1) the manufacturer should bear the cost of injury as between it and an innocent plaintiff, (2) manufacturers are better able to bear the cost of injury resulting from defective products, and (3) because manufacturers are in a better position to discover and prevent product defects and to warn consumers of harmful effects, imposing liability would further ensure product safety.  Sindell, 26 Cal.3d at 610-611, 163 Cal.Rptr. at 144, 607 P.2d at 936
                

Any manufacturer unable to prove it did not produce the product at issue is held severally liable for the proportion of the plaintiff's awarded damages that reflects the manufacturer's total share of the product market. Brown v. City & Cty. of San Francisco Superior Court (1988), 44 Cal.3d 1049, 1072-1076, 245 Cal.Rptr. 412, 426-428, 751 P.2d 470, 485-487; Sindell, 26 Cal.3d at 611-612, 163 Cal.Rptr. at 145, 607 P.2d at 937. In support of this unique method of damage allocation, the court reasoned that a defendant-manufacturer's percentage share of the total market for a product is proportional to the likelihood that the defendant-manufacturer produced the specific product that injured the plaintiff. Id. The only causation a plaintiff need prove in order to recover under a market-share theory is the causal connection between exposure to, or use of, the product at issue and the injury sustained.

This atypical theory of tort recovery has not gained wide acceptance outside California. Of the...