California has taken a significant step toward holding plaintiffs who claim to be accidentally injured by a product accountable for failing to avoid the injury. In the recent case of Johnson v. American Standard, Inc., the California Supreme Court adopted the Sophisticated User Defense and applied it to strict products liability claims and negligent product liability claims based upon a failure to warn theory.
Generally a “sophisticated user” is an expected user of a product who is aware of risks for which a warning might otherwise be required. Often, sophisticated users are employees who work with a particular product in the course and scope of their employment. The training they receive in order to work with that particular product can make those employees sophisticated users.
The Johnson case was filed by a universally certified HVAC technician who alleged exposure to an air conditioning refrigerant. One of the manufacturers of an air conditioning system which contained that refrigerant filed a motion for summary judgment. The Appellate Court held that the sophisticated user defense applied to both strict liability and negligence claims because the plaintiff either knew or should have known of his risk to exposure to that refrigerant while working on the air conditioner. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the Appellate Court.
In California, manufacturers are strictly liable for injuries caused by a failure to warn of known dangers or dangers known by the scientific community at the time the product was manufactured and distributed. From a negligence perspective, a manufacturer has a duty to warn a consumer about a product’s inherent hazards that would not have been appreciated by the product’s intended users.
The Sophisticated User Defense is derived from the rule that a manufacturer does not need to warn of an obvious danger. As such, sophisticated users need not be warned about dangers of which they are aware or of which they should be aware. In other words, a duty to warn is not limited to what a particular plaintiff knows, but what a plaintiff should know based upon the class of sophisticated users to which that plaintiff belongs.
The Johnson decision is essentially based upon the common sense rule that a manufacturer need not warn of a known risk. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Sophisticated User Defense should apply to claims based both on negligence and strict liability.
The inherently reasonable nature of the defense is illustrated by the following excerpt from the Johnson decision:
“The focus of the defense, therefore, is whether the danger in question was so generally known within the trade or profession that a manufacturer should not have been expected to provide a warning to the group to which plaintiff belonged. Consequently, there is no reason why the sophisticated user defense should not be as available against strict liability causes of action as it is for negligence causes of action. In both instances, the sophisticated user’s knowledge eliminates the manufacturer’s need for a warning.”
The Johnson decision also sets forth the rule that the knowledge of the sophisticated user class is determined as of the date of the injury, not when the product was actually manufactured. In other words, the relevance of any warning issue depends upon the then current knowledge of the sophisticated user class, which could be obtained after the product was manufactured.
This opinion is not yet final. The case may be reheard and the opinion modified. If that is not done, which is likely because the decision was unanimous, the decision will become final thirty days after its date of issuance, April 3, 2008.
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