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Carlin v. Superior Court8/30/1996
MOSK, Acting C. J.
In this case we address the question whether a plaintiff alleging injury from ingesting a prescription drug can state a claim against the manufacturer for strict liability and breach of warranty for failure to warn about the known or reasonably scientifically knowable dangerous propensities of its product. We conclude that she can.
In our recent decision in Anderson v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. (1993) 53 Cal. 3d 987 [281 Cal. Rptr. 528, 810 P.2d 549] (hereafter Anderson), we held generally that manufacturers are strictly liable for injuries caused by their failure to give warning of dangers that were known to the scientific community at the time they manufactured and distributed the product: "Whatever may be reasonable from the point of view of the manufacturer, the user of the product must be given the option either to refrain from using the product at all or to use it in such a way as to minimize the degree of danger." ( Id. at p. 1003.) In so doing, we expressly applied to manufacturers of all products the same rule of strict liability for failure to warn of known or reasonably scientifically knowable risks that we previously applied specifically to manufacturers of prescription drugs. ( Id. at p. 1000; see Brown v. Superior Court (1988) 44 Cal. 3d 1049 [245 Cal. Rptr. 412, 751 P.2d 470] (hereafter Brown.) The Upjohn Company (hereafter Upjohn), a manufacturer of prescription drugs, urges us to now reject the strict liability standard under Anderson for cases involving failure to warn of known or reasonably scientifically knowable risks from prescription drugs, and adopt a new standard of simple negligence for that industry only. We discern no sound basis for doing so. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
I.
Plaintiff Wilma Peggy Carlin (hereafter Carlin) brought an action for damages against Upjohn for injuries she assertedly sustained from ingesting the drug Halcion, which was prescribed for her by a physician between 1987 and 1992. She claimed, as relevant here, that Upjohn was strictly liable for failing "properly to prepare and/or warn of the dangerous propensities of Halcion." She specifically alleged that Upjohn "knew that the drug Halcion was defective . . . [,] that those who were prescribed Halcion and took the same would experience, and did experience, severe physical, mental, and emotional damages/injuries and yet, notwithstanding this knowledge, despicably, and in willful and conscious disregard of the safety of those who were prescribed Halcion and of the plaintiff herein, without giving any notice of the defect to the purchasers of Halcion, placed and persisted in placing Halcion into the stream of commerce . . . ." She also claimed that Upjohn was liable for breach of warranty. She alleged that it "expressly and impliedly warranted to the physicians and their health-care patients that Halcion was a prescription drug fit for the use for which it was intended and was of merchantable quality" despite the fact that the product "was unfit and unsafe for ingestion by health-care patients in light of its known propensity to cause serious side-effects, including, but not limited to, physical, mental and emotional injuries to persons ingesting Halcion . . . ."
Upjohn demurred, alleging, inter alia, that Carlin failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action for strict liability or for breach of warranty. It argued that, under California law, no cause of action for strict liability or breach of warranty can be stated against a prescription drug manufacturer based on failure to warn. The superior court sustained the demurrer as to those causes of action without leave to amend. Carli
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