Subject: Summary Judgement

Missing the Mark: Summary Judgment Granted Where Plaintiff’s Experts Opine on Defect but Fail to Support Causation

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Product liability claims require proof of causation.  To be sure, they also require proof of some defect in the product and/or its accompanying warnings and product literature.  But defect and causation are separate elements of a prima facie claim, and both must be established – usually, through expert testimony.  As we have discussed on multiple occasions (for example, here and here), a plaintiff’s failure to offer admissible expert testimony on each element can lead to summary judgment.  A recent decision from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania offers yet another illustration.

In Slatowski v. Sig Sauer, Inc., 2024 WL 1078198 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 12, 2024), the plaintiff was an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) officer who was injured when his pistol fired unintentionally during a marksmanship training exercise.  He sued the gun manufacturer, alleging that a design defect in the gun’s integral safety feature – specifically, the lack of a tabbed trigger – caused the firearm to discharge unintentionally. The plaintiff proffered two experts in support of the claim:  a gunsmith and a certified firearms instructor and range safety officer with a Ph.D. in ergonomics.  The defendant moved to exclude both experts’ opinions and also moved for summary judgment, arguing that the plaintiff had no admissible expert testimony to establish causation.

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Can a Treating Physician Opine on Causation? Eleventh Circuit Says It’s About Intent, not Content

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Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2) outlines two different sets of pretrial disclosure requirements, imposing more onerous requirements on “retained” than “non-retained” experts.  Relatedly, when non-retained expert witnesses offer opinions based on information obtained outside the scope of their personal involvement in the facts of the case, most courts require them to submit a full Rule 26(a)(2)(B) report.  See, e.g., Goodman v. Staples The Office Superstore LLC, 644 F.3d 817, 826 (9th Cir. 2011).  Thus, for example, a physician who provided care to a personal injury plaintiff is treated as a retained expert for disclosure purposes when he or she bases a causation opinion on materials provided by an attorney and reviewed as part of the litigation.  Some courts, taking this rationale a step further, have required all experts who opine on certain topics – for example, causation – to submit a full Rule 26(a)(2)(B) report.  See, e.g., Muzaffarr v. Ross Dress for Less, Inc., 2013 WL 3850848 (S.D. Fla. July 26, 2013).  But according to the Eleventh Circuit’s recent opinion in Cedant v. United States, — F.4th —, 2023 WL 4986402 (11th Cir. 2023), such rules invert the Rule 26(a)(2) analysis.

The Plaintiff in Cedant alleged that he was injured in an accident with a U.S. Postal Service truck.  The parties agreed that, under applicable Florida law, Plaintiff had to support his claim with expert testimony showing that the accident caused his harm.  He proposed to satisfy that requirement solely by offering testimony from several doctors who treated him after the accident.  The district court, holding that experts who offer opinions on causation must satisfy Rule 26(a)(2)(B)’s disclosure requirements (including, inter alia, a Rule 26 report) and observing that none of Plaintiff’s treating physicians had satisfied those requirements, excluded the experts under Rule 37(c)(1).  Then, because Plaintiff had no admissible expert testimony to support causation, the court granted Defendant’s motion for summary judgment.  Plaintiff appealed.

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Indiana Court of Appeals Holds Product Misuse Unforeseeable in Light of Product Warnings, Reverses Denial of Summary Judgment

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Key Takeaway:  In Superior Oil Company, Inc. v. Labno-Fritchley, 207 N.E.3d 456 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023), the Indiana Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s denial of summary judgment in a product liability case.  The court held that summary judgment should have been granted because the defendant’s designated evidence related to the product’s warning label established the affirmative defenses of misuse and incurred risk as a matter of law.  Notably, the opinion illustrates how failure to heed the warnings that accompany a product can amount to unforeseeable product misuse.

Background:  Plaintiff’s decedent attempted to remove the top of an empty 55-gallon metal drum with a cutting torch when it exploded, resulting in his death.  The top of the drum – at which the decedent had to have been looking as he cut – bore an 8” x 12” warning label that, among other things, warned of the dangers of an empty metal drum and advised “[d]o not flame cut, braze, or weld empty container.”  Although not emphasized by the Labno-Fritchley court, a picture of the label in the court’s opinion suggests that this language comprised only a very small portion of the label and was not in boldfaced or underlined font.

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Court Finds Ship Has Sailed for Seaman to Disclose Expert’s Opinions, Resulting in Summary Judgment

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Discovery deadlines exist for a reason.  Although there are exceptions to every rule – and often a rule dictating how to handle such exceptions – litigants in federal court are expected to show their evidentiary cards in a timely, orderly fashion that avoids surprise.  In the context of expert discovery, this means inter alia that witnesses who have been retained specifically to offer expert opinion testimony must author a written report (i.e., a Rule 26 report) setting out their opinions and the bases for those opinions.  Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(B).  Opinions that are inadequately disclosed may be excluded at trial.  Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c).  In some cases, this can leave a litigant unable to make a prima facie case and survive summary judgment.

One recent example is Adkins v. Marathon Petroleum Company LP, — F. Supp. 3d. —, 2023 WL 3242432 (S.D. Ohio 2023).  In Adkins, Plaintiff alleged that his exposure to hydrogen sulfide (H2S) fumes while working as a tankerman on Defendant’s barge caused him permanent pulmonary injuries.  He sued his employer, asserting three causes of action based on this theory:  (1) a claim under the Jones Act, (2) Unseaworthiness, and (3) Maintenance and Cure.  But each of these causes of action required Plaintiff to establish that his exposure to H2S fumes caused his alleged injuries.  Both parties agreed that H2S fumes can cause pulmonary injuries at high enough concentrations, but there was a problem in Plaintiff’s case – both he and his coworkers routinely wore badges designed to alert the wearer if H2S levels exceeded a certain threshold (which threshold was undisputedly below the OSHA regulatory limit and NIOSH short-term exposure limit), and there was no documentation that Plaintiff’s badge had ever alarmed.  In short, it was not at all obvious that Plaintiff had been exposed to enough H2S to cause his claimed injuries.  Defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing Plaintiff was unable to establish general and specific causation.

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Dismissal of a Broken Chair Claim Shows That Expert Testimony May Be Essential Even for a “Simple” Product

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In Mehner v. Furniture Design Studios, Inc., 2023 WL 2351688 (D. Neb. Mar. 3, 2023), the court granted summary judgment on product defect claims by a plaintiff allegedly injured by the collapse of a restaurant chair eight years after the manufacturer delivered it.  This well-reasoned decision reminds us that even for fairly simple products, expert proof may be required to establish a defect – and failure to develop the factual predicate in discovery may leave the plaintiff without an opinion (and without a case).  It also highlights important limitations in the “malfunction theory” that sometimes allows a plaintiff to proceed without expert proof or identification of a specific defect.

Plaintiff was eating at a restaurant in Omaha when his chair allegedly collapsed.  He sued Furniture Design Studios (FDS), which designed, manufactured and sold the chair, asserting strict liability and negligence design defect claims.

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Lack of “Newly Acquired Information” Defeats Plaintiffs’ Claims in Zofran MDL

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Zofran (ondansetron) has often been used to combat nausea during pregnancy.  It has never been approved by the FDA for that indication, but clinical experience has not supported an association with pregnancy-related risks – for example, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that use of ondansetron during pregnancy was associated with a reduced incidence of miscarriage but “was not associated with abnormal pregnancy outcomes,” including a variety of birth defects.  Nevertheless, plaintiffs have alleged that Zofran causes birth defects and that the warnings accompanying the drug should have said so.  Those claims were dismissed in 2021 when the district court held them preempted, and the First Circuit recently affirmed that decision in In re Zofran (Ondansetron) Products Liability Litigation, — F.4th —, 2023 WL 128570 (1st Cir. Jan. 9, 2023).

Plaintiffs in the Zofran MDL alleged, among other things, that the defendants failed to warn of birth defects observed in certain animal studies.  Because such claims implicate the warnings accompanying an FDA-approved drug, they are preempted unless the manufacturer could have unilaterally amended the label through the Changes Being Effected (CBE) regulation.  The CBE regulation permits a manufacturer to amend a product’s labeling without prior FDA approval “to reflect newly acquired information” and thereby “add or strengthen” the warnings where there is “evidence of a causal association” between the drug and the subject on which the warnings are being amended.

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