Wright v. American Cyanamid Co., 97-1322.

• Citation: 599 N.W.2d 668
• Decision Date: 09 September 1999
• Docket Number: No. 97-1322.,97-1322.
• Parties: Orville WRIGHT, Appellant, v. Cropmate Company d/b/a Dunlap Fertilizer, Defendant, and AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

599 N.W.2d 668

Orville WRIGHT, Appellant, v. Cropmate Company d/b/a Dunlap Fertilizer, Defendant, and AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, Appellee.

No. 97-1322.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

September 9, 1999.

Robert Kohorst of the Kohorst Law Firm, Harlan, for appellant.

Lawrence P. McLellan of Bradshaw, Fowler, Proctor & Fairgrave, P.C., Des Moines, for appellee.

Considered by McGIVERIN, C.J., and LARSON, LAVORATO, NEUMAN, and SNELL, JJ. McGIVERIN, Chief Justice.

The main question here is whether plaintiff Orville Wright's claims against defendant American Cyanamid Company, concerning the effectiveness of defendant's herbicide on certain weeds in plaintiff's farm fields, are preempted by the federal insecticide, fungicide, and rodenticide act (FIFRA), 7 U.S.C. § 136-136y (1994). The district court concluded that plaintiff's claims were preempted, or not supported by evidence, and therefore entered summary judgment in favor of defendant. Upon our review, we affirm.

I. Background facts and proceedings.

Plaintiff Orville Wright is a farmer in Harrison County, Iowa. Cropmate Company was doing business through Dunlap Fertilizer, as an agricultural supply and chemical business located in Harrison County. In June 1994, plaintiff Wright hired Dunlap Fertilizer to apply herbicides to his soybean fields. The herbicides applied were Pursuit, Prowl and Select which are manufactured by American Cyanamid.¹ The herbicides as applied were ineffective and plaintiff's soybean fields were overcome by weeds.

Claiming monetary damages as a result of lower yields and increased harvest costs due to the weeds in his fields, plaintiff filed a three-count petition against Dunlap Fertilizer and Cropmate Company. Plaintiff alleged that those defendants were negligent in improperly mixing and preparing the chemicals to be sprayed on plaintiff's soybeans and in improperly applying herbicides to plaintiff's soybeans.

Later, Wright filed an amended and substituted petition naming American Cyanamid as a defendant, alleging products liability, negligence and breach of warranty (express and implied) claims.

After filing an answer, defendant American Cyanamid filed a motion for summary judgment concerning those claims alleged by plaintiff against it. Plaintiff filed a resistance.

After a hearing, the district court sustained American Cyanamid's motion for summary judgment, concluding that plaintiff's claims were preempted under FIFRA or not supported by evidence.²

Plaintiff appeals.

II. Standard of review.

Our review of a grant or denial of summary judgment is for correction of errors at law. Iowa R.App. P. 4; Krause v. Krause, 589 N.W.2d 721, 724 (Iowa 1999). Summary judgment is only appropriate when no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Iowa R. Civ. P. 237(c). To determine whether there is a genuine issue of material fact, the court must examine the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions on file, and affidavits. Id. The record here consists of the pleadings, affidavits and exhibits. We review the record in the light most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment, Keystone Elec. Mfg. v. City of Des Moines, 586 N.W.2d 340, 345 (Iowa 1998), and the moving party carries the burden of showing the absence of a material fact issue. Schuver v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 546 N.W.2d 610, 612 (Iowa 1996). Summary judgment is inappropriate if reasonable minds would differ on how the issue should be resolved. Keystone, 586 N.W.2d at 345.

III. General background law regarding preemption under FIFRA.

As we noted in Ackerman v. American Cyanamid Co., the federal preemption doctrine is grounded upon the supremacy clause of the federal constitution:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

586 N.W.2d 208, 211 (Iowa 1998) (quoting in part U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2). In Ackerman, we also explained the relationship between the preemption doctrine and FIFRA:

Preemption may be found where congress' intent to preempt the field is either expressly stated or implicit in congressional policies.

FIFRA is a comprehensive federal statute regulating pesticide use, sales, and labeling. The EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] is the administrative agency in charge of setting appropriate regulations. Before a pesticide may be sold, it must be registered and its labeling approved by the EPA. The review process requires an applicant to submit a proposed label to the EPA for approval. This label must address numerous concerns, including the ingredients, directions for use, and adverse effects of the product. In addition to the written material on the actual container, the term "label" also includes written, printed, or graphic material accompanying the container, to which reference is made.

Id. at 211-12 (citations omitted).

FIFRA specifically sets forth the authority the states shall have concerning the labeling of pesticides:

(a) In general

A state may regulate the sale or use of any federally registered pesticide or device in the State, but only if and to the extent the regulation does not permit any sale or use prohibited by this subchapter.

(b) Uniformity

Such State shall not impose or continue in effect any requirements for labeling or packaging in addition to or different from those required under this subchapter.

7 U.S.C. § 136v.

The preemption doctrine does not deprive state courts of subject matter jurisdiction over claims involving federal preemption unless Congress has given exclusive jurisdiction to a federal forum. See Ackerman, 586 N.W.2d at 214 n. 3. Rather, FIFRA, through the preemption doctrine, only affects the authority and ability of states to impose additional or different labeling or packaging requirements on herbicides and pesticides in addition to those required by the EPA. See Clubine v. American Cyanamid Co., 534 N.W.2d 385, 387 (Iowa 1995)

. Thus, negligence claims against manufacturers of herbicides and pesticides that challenge the information contained in a product's label are preempted by FIFRA. Ackerman, 586 N.W.2d at 212. In other words, 7 U.S.C. § 136v(b) "dictates the preemption of any state common law cause of action that rests on an alleged failure to warn or communicate information about a product through its labeling." Worm v. American Cyanamid Co., 5 F.3d 744, 747 (4th Cir.1993) (Worm II). The difficult task, of course, is deciding whether a claim is a challenge to a product's label.

IV. Prior Iowa case law regarding preemption under FIFRA.

As was the situation in Ackerman, the preemptive effect of 7 U.S.C. § 136v(b) is the issue we must examine in this case. Before considering whether plaintiff Wright's claims against American Cyanamid are preempted by FIFRA, we believe it helpful to first briefly review what we said in our prior cases concerning the preemption issue.

In Clubine v. American Cyanamid Co., 534 N.W.2d at 386, farmers sued the manufacturers of certain herbicides alleging: (1) defendants' herbicides were defective and unreasonably dangerous; (2) defendants breached an implied warranty of merchantability; (3) defendants breached an express warranty; and (4) defendants negligently failed to test, label and provide adequate instructions and warning regarding use of the herbicides. We concluded that plaintiffs' claims that the herbicides were defective and unreasonably dangerous, and that defendants breached an express warranty or an implied warranty of merchantability, were label-based claims because they depended upon requirements in addition to-or different from-those imposed under FIFRA. Id. at 387. We thus concluded that those claims were preempted.

We further concluded that plaintiffs' claims charging defendants with negligence in testing their products were not preempted, but that the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs' negligent testing claim for lack of evidence. Id. at 388. In doing so, we did not elaborate on how to determine whether a claim is a challenge to a manufacturer's testing of a product or a disguised label-based claim.

Schuver v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 546 N.W.2d 610, was our next discussion involving the preemption doctrine and FIFRA. In Schuver, plaintiff's claims were based on the allegation that defendant's herbicide, Preview, caused crop damage because of residual carryover that adversely affected the next year's crops. Plaintiff alleged that defendant was negligent in (1) marketing the Preview; (2) failing to withdraw the Preview from sale after learning of crop damages caused by it; (3) failing to test Preview in O'Brien County, Iowa, soil types; and (4) failing to notify O'Brien county farmers in a timely manner of the propensity of Preview to carry over. Id. at 613.

We characterized plaintiff's negligence claims as really a single claim that the Preview label should have warned against using Preview in O'Brien County because the land in that county has a tendency to have a pH factor greater than 6.8 and that this caution was information that should have been on the label. Id. at 614. However, because the Preview label already cautioned that Preview should not be applied to soils with a pH factor greater than 6.8, we concluded that plaintiff's claims were preempted because specific reference on the Preview label to use of Preview in O'Brien County would have been additional or different information from that required under FIFRA. Id. at 614-15. Our decision in Schuver, therefore, clearly established the rule that any claim concerning an additional warning to the customer/plaintiff regarding use of the product is a challenge to the content of the label and is thus preempted.

We most recently addressed the preemption issue in ...