Failure to Warn Under Ohio Product Liability Act

Claimants may establish that a product is defective due to inadequate warning or instruction under the Act by showing that the manufacturer unreasonably failed to provide warning or instruction, at the time of marketing the product or after the product left the manufacturer's control, where the warning or instruction was required "in light of the likelihood that the product would cause harm of the type for which the claimant seeks to recover...and in light of the likely seriousness of that harm."

Claimants may establish that a product is defective due to inadequate warning or instruction under the Act by showing that the manufacturer unreasonably failed to provide warning or instruction, at the time of marketing the product or after the product left the manufacturer's control, where the warning or instruction was required "in light of the likelihood that the product would cause harm of the type for which the claimant seeks to recover…and in light of the likely seriousness of that harm."(1)

OPEN AND OBVIOUS DEFENSE

A product is not defective due to inadequate warning or instruction where the manufacturer fails "to warn or instruct about an open and obvious risk or a risk that is a matter of common knowledge."(2)

LEARNED INTERMEDIARY DOCTRINE DEFENSE

A prescription drug prescribed or dispensed by a physician or other person legally authorized to do so is not defective due to inadequate warning or instruction "if its manufacturer provides otherwise adequate warning and instruction to the physician or other legally authorized person who prescribes or dispenses [it]…and if the federal food and drug administration has not provided that warning or instruction relative to that ethical drug is to be given directly to the ultimate user of it."(3) An the Ohio Supreme Court has extended the learned intermediary doctrine specifically to prescription medical devices.(4)

1. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2307.76(A).
2. §2307.76(B); Hanlon v. Lane, 98 Ohio App. 3d 148, 154, 648 N.E.2d 26, 30 (1994) (natural gas manufacturer has no duty to warn of the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning where danger is open and obvious).
3. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. ¶2307.76(C).
4. Vaccariello, 94 Ohio St. 3d at 384-85, 763 N.E.2d at 164-65. A federal court has held that the learned intermediary doctrine also applies in favor of parties other than pharmaceutical manufacturers. See Midwest Specialties, Inc. v. Crown Indus. Prods. Co., 940 F. Supp. 1160, 1167 (N.D. Ohio 1996), aff’d, 142 F.3d 435 (6th Cir. 1998) (recognizing the sophisticated-user doctrine in non-pharmaceutical cases).