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Bond v. E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and Co.6/3/1993
s is a question of law. Hilberg v. F.W. Woolworth Co., 761 P.2d 236 (Colo. App. 1988). This determination requires consideration of the risk involved, the foreseeability and likelihood of injury as weighed against the social utility of the actor's conduct, the magnitude of the burden of guarding against injury or harm, and the consequences of placing the burden upon the actor. Shaw v. General Motors Corp., supra.
To the extent plaintiffs assert that DuPont had a duty to provide a warning to physicians and patients, we disagree with such a contention.
Although there is a distinction between claims for negligence and strict liability based on failure to warn, the same evidence will frequently be used to establish both claims. See Union Supply Co. v. Pust, supra. Further, both failure-to-warn and design-defect cases employ "negligence terms" to assist a trier of fact in determining whether a product is defective and unreasonably dangerous. See Fibreboard Corp. v. Fenton, supra. Likewise, the same analysis which leads to the Conclusion that DuPont had no duty to warn plaintiffs under a theory of strict liability leads us to conclude that it had no duty to warn under a theory of negligence.
We further conclude DuPont had no duty to refrain from selling its product to Vitek. As already noted, there was no evidence that DuPont had actual knowledge that the Implant was unreasonably dangerous. In these circumstances, the social utility of permitting DuPont to grant relatively unrestrained access to purchasers of its product is high, especially here, because it encourages development of new products in the medical field and does not unnecessarily inhibit technological advances. Conversely, there is little social utility in placing the burden on a manufacturer of component parts or supplier of raw materials of guarding against injuries caused by the final product when the component parts or raw materials themselves were not unreasonably dangerous. See Shaw v. General Motors Corp., supra; Jordan v. Whiting Corp., 49 Mich. App. 481, 486, 212 N.W.2d 324, 328 (1973), rev'd in part on other grounds, 396 Mich. 145, 240 N.W.2d 468 (1976)("The obligation that generates a duty to avoid injury to another which is reasonably foreseeable does not--at least yet--extend to the anticipation of how manufactured components not in and of themselves dangerous or defective can become potentially dangerous dependent upon the nature of their integration into a unit designed, assembled, installed, and sold by another.").
Further, there is again even less reason to impose such a duty when, as here, the designer of the final product presumably possesses highly specialized knowledge of the field in which the product exists and that designer is under a duty imposed by the government to conduct specific tests and provide particular warnings. See White v. Weiner, 386 Pa. Super. 111, 562 A.2d 378 (1989); George v. Parke-Davis, 107 Wash. 2d 584, 733 P.2d 507 (1987).
We hold that, as the supplier of raw materials used in the medical device designed, manufactured, and sold by Vitek, DuPont owed no duty to plaintiffs under a theory of negligence either to provide them with any warnings or to refrain from selling its raw materials to Vitek. See Childress v. Gresen Manufacturing Co., supra; cf. Hilberg v. F.W. Woolworth Co, supra.
The judgment is affirmed.
JUDGE RULAND and JUDGE ROTHENBERG concur.
Disposition
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED
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