The Maryland Court of Appeals has ruled that drug manufacturer Eli Lilly was not liable for a fatal accident caused by a user of one of its diabetes drugs who blacked out while driving and crashed into another vehicle.
Ellen Crews, a diabetic who took insulin medications while driving, struck an automobile driven by Isaac Gourdine, killing him. Gourdine’s wife filed suit against Eli Lilly and Co., the manufacturer of the insulin medications taken by Crews, alleging fraud, negligence and strict liability for failure to warn of known concealed defects.
Gourdine’s attorneys claimed that “Lilly breached its duty by failing to warn consumers that a high percentage of Type I diabetics were at greatly increased risk of drug-induced hypoglycemia, neuroglycopenia and drowsiness at mid-day.”
Lilly’s lawyers counter argued that Lilly did not owe a duty to warn the accident victim Gourdine, who did not use or consume Lilly’s insulin products.
The court affirmed the “learned intermediary” doctrine adopted by Maryland courts. This imposes a duty on a manufacturer to warn physicians and other health care professionals who may prescribe these products. Under the doctrine, a manufacturer that has adequately warned the physician has no duty to warn a patient.
The high court ruled that “it follows that if a pharmaceutical manufacturer does not have a duty to give patients using their products warnings, they do not have a duty to warn the people with whom those patients interact.”
The high court also found that even if Lilly’s warnings were inadequate, the injuries to Gourdine were not foreseeable as the plaintiff alleged.
Topics Maryland Manufacturing
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