Law Center Search Results

The NAM filed an amicus brief urging the Ohio Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that imposed a post-marketing duty to warn consumers based on post-sale safety improvements. This is an appeal of a lower court decision requiring a manufacturer to warn consumers, post-sale, of any known risk in using a product, including instances where the product is not defective, the risk of harm is unlikely and insubstantial, and the risk asserted is the difference between the product and a newer improved product. If upheld, this decision could disincentivize product improvements. The NAM’s brief argued that a post-marketing duty to warn requires consideration of the likelihood and seriousness of potential harm, not merely that there is any known risk, and that the decision to penalize manufacturers with mandatory warnings for product improvements also amounts to a court-crafted “innovation tax.” In a win for manufacturers, the court held that manufacturers do not have a post-sale duty to warn about risks associated with a product that are not discovered until after the product has been sold and that are not likely to pose a serious risk.