Warnings - Scope of and Exceptions to Duty to Warn Webinar

Brian A. Comer is a litigator with Collins & Lacy, P.C. in Columbia, South Carolina, where he practices in both products liability and professional liability  law. Brian has extensive experience in products liability law, including serving as national coordinating counsel for a major pharmaceutical manufacturer in mass tort multi-district litigation.  Brian also authors a blog entitled "The South Carolina Products Liability Law Blog" at http://scproductsliabilitylaw.blogspot.com. Brian will speak on exceptions to the duty to warn relating to food products, including foods associated with common allergies and substances consumed over a long period of time.  This discussion will include analysis of Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 402A, comment j, and the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Act that went into effect in 2006.  Brian will also discuss the exception to the duty to warn for open and obvious risks that should be "common sense" to a product user, without the need for any warning about these types of dangers.  Brian will provide examples of this exception in case law, and he will also discuss how new technologies may impact this exception in the future (i.e., designs that can prevent open and obvious risks so that if they are omitted, a manufacturer may still be liable).

Rick Quinlivan is a trial attorney based in Southern California with significant trial experience in product liability cases.  He is national counsel for a product manufacturer and has been lead counsel in trials in several states. Rick will be opening the presentation with a brief overview of the duty to warn as it applies to products generally. He will discuss the reasons warnings are necessary and to whom the duty to warn extends. He will also address the methods used by plaintiffs to establish failure to warn claims. Rick will conclude with a synopsis of issues concerning the post-sale duty to warn.

John R. Brydon is a trial lawyer and a founding principal at Brydon Hugo & Parker in San Francisco, California.  He has represented numerous fortune 500 corporations in products liability trials.  John is certified in civil trial advocacy by the National Board of Trial Advocacy; a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates and also a Diplomate of the Litigation Counsel of America. He will speak on exceptions to the duty to the failure to warn as it relates to recent developments in the application of the sophisticated user doctrine and the corollary concept of the learnedintermediary.  This will include not only a discussion of the doctrines as they have evolved in pharmaceutical litigation but the expansion of those doctrines in mass tort trials.  He will also discuss the government contractor defense and the circumstances under which defendants that supply products to the government and military may be relieved from the duty to warn. John hastried cases to verdict in which these defenses have been litigated and he has practical trial experience and insights into presenting these issues to juries.