KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (Legal Newsline) - Equipment manufacturers whose products were combined with asbestos-containing components after they left the factory aren’t liable for failing to warn workers of the risk of cancer, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled, interpreting for the first time a disputed aspect of a state product liability statute.
The high court on Jan. 4 reversed an appellate decision holding makers of pumps, valves and other gear could be sued under the Tennessee Products Liability Act for selling unreasonably dangerous products. Plaintiff Donald Coffman and his wife sued after he was diagnosed with mesothelioma he attributed to performing maintenance on equipment at an Eastman chemical plant.
By the time it was installed at the plant, the valves and other components had been equipped with asbestos-containing gaskets and insulation. Several companies, including Ingersoll-Rand, appealed a loss at the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The latest decision, written by Justice Roger Page, protects companies in Tennessee from asbestos lawsuits over products that never contained the substance, although the court cautioned it doesn’t apply to products that left the factory containing asbestos in any amount.
A trial court granted summary judgment for the defendants, saying the products liability statute only conveyed liability for products as they left the factory. An appeals court reversed, ruling that since the products were intended to be used with asbestos-containing components they should have come with warning labels even though they didn’t have asbestos themselves.
The Supreme Court reversed again, ruling that the statute overrides common law and limits liability to products until they leave the control of the manufacturer. The plaintiffs argued the law also says a product is in a “defective condition” when it is in a condition that “renders it unsafe for normal or anticipatable handling and consumption.”
But the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling for the first time that the statute protects manufacturers against claims based upon the likelihood a product will be rendered dangerous later by other components the defendant didn’t make.
“We hold that, under the TPLA, manufacturers have no duty to warn with respect to products manufactured and sold by others,” the court ruled.
“We reiterate that the language of the TPLA dictates our decision here, and we do not opine on what we perceive to be the optimal outcome of this case in terms of public policy,” the court went on. “That determination is for the legislature.”
Justice Sharon Lee dissented.
"This holding undercuts the duty to warn in Tennessee products liability law, because even if a manufacturer knows that its product will have to undergo some future change or replacement, and knows the change or replacement will likely make the product unreasonably dangerous, the manufacturer has no duty to warn," she wrote.