In 1972, Neil Younger wrote his nice track, “Alabama,” the lyrics of which included the next: “Alabama, you’ve bought the remainder of the union, that can assist you alongside; what’s going incorrect?”  These lyrics occurred to us in 2013, once we learn the Weeks resolution, by which the Alabama Supreme Courtroom endorsed innovator legal responsibility. We get how loopy California would embrace such nonsense, however how may Alabama, house of Huntsville rocket scientists and inspiration for To Kill a Mockingbird, arrive at such an error? We known as the Weeks resolution “execrable” once we wrote about it right here.  Two years later, we had been buzzing alongside to a higher track, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Candy Residence Alabama,” when the Alabama legislature abolished the innovator legal responsibility doctrine in that nice state.  (We mentioned that solonic reversal right here.)

As we speak’s case, Watkins v. Pfizer, Inc., 2023 WL 7308325 (S.D. Alabama Nov. 6, 2023), furnishes contemporary proof that the product legal responsibility factor of product identification is alive and properly in Alabama, because of the legislature’s restoration of sanity. Watkins entails a very talked-about over-the-counter (OTC) drugs.  The professional se plaintiff sued a few producers, alleging that the OTC ache reliever prompted him to undergo from Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS).  If you happen to’ve learn this weblog for any size of time, you understand that whereas SJS is a really uncommon illness, it’s not so uncommon within the space of OTC litigation.  SJS is usually a horrible illness, and SJS plaintiffs may be terribly sympathetic.  Even so, there are authorized and medical defenses in SJS circumstances.  

In Watkins, one of many defendants supplied up the protection that it was not a producer, designer, or vendor of the product.  It filed a movement to dismiss the case underneath Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).  The damage occurred in Alabama.  Due to this fact, Alabama substantive regulation ruled the case.  Quoting the identical 2015 statutory modification that the Weblog mentioned (Ala. Code part 6-5-530(a) says that “Designers, producers, sellers, or lessors of merchandise not recognized as having been used, ingested, or encountered by an allegedly injured celebration will not be held responsible for any alleged damage”), the Watkins resolution threw out the grievance as a result of, regardless of how liberally the professional se plaintiff’s grievance was construed —  which, within the Eleventh Circuit may be fairly liberal certainly – it didn’t embrace the statutorily mandated factor of figuring out a product made/bought by the defendant. The court docket took judicial discover of publicly obtainable supplies, together with the defendant’s annual report, that demonstrated who makes what. The plaintiff didn’t problem the knowledge displaying that the movant didn’t make or promote the drugs. Accordingly, the court docket dismissed all the plaintiff’s claims in opposition to the transferring defendant as a result of the plaintiff “did not state a believable declare for aid underneath Alabama regulation in opposition to” the transferring defendant. 

As considered one of our esteemed defense-side colleagues (who performed for and received a nationwide championship underneath Bear Bryant) would say, Roll Tide.