DeMayo v. Schmitt

5 Pa. D. & C.4th 197, 1989 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 56
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County
DecidedDecember 28, 1989
Docketno. 625
StatusPublished

This text of 5 Pa. D. & C.4th 197 (DeMayo v. Schmitt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
DeMayo v. Schmitt, 5 Pa. D. & C.4th 197, 1989 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 56 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1989).

Opinion

KLEIN, J.,

In April 1948, Agnes Babcock was pregnant with her daughter, [198]*198Mary Ellen, who by marriage later became Mary Ellen DeMayo. While carrying Mary Ellen in útero, Agnes Babcock allegedly ingested diethylstilbestrol (DES). In December 1977, Mary Ellen DeMayo became pregnant with the minor plaintiff, Alena DeMayo. In this action, it is claimed that the grandchild, Alena DeMayo, suffered injuries caused by the ingestion of DES by her grandmother, Agnes Babcock.

Defendants challenge the right of grandchild Alena DeMayo to bring an action for injuries and deformities allegedly caused by a drug administered to her grandmother. In essence, defendants claim that there should be no recovery for a “third-generation” injury.

This court has granted the motion for summary judgment in part and denied it in part.

The motion for summary judgment is denied, and recovery will be allowed if the plaintiff can show:

(1) The manufacturer acted negligently in placing the product on the market without sufficiently testing for efficacy and risk; and

(2) The manufacturer knew or should have known that there would be a risk of injury to the reproductive system of the second generation. Knowledge of the risk of injury to the reproductive system of the second generation creates a foreseeable risk of deformities in the third generation.

The motion for summary judgment is granted as to some of the counts, as follows:

(1) Strict liability will not apply to a third-generation injury. Because of the remoteness and lack of foreseeability of an injury to the third generation, under a balancing test, it is unfair to place such a burden on a manufacturer that is free from fault."

(2) For plaintiff to recover for a third-generation [199]*199injury under a negligence theory, he or she must show more than that there was a risk of general injury to the second generation. Plaintiffs must also show that defendants should have known of the specific risk of third-generation injury because of evidence of risk of injury to the reproductive system of the second-generation child.

In general, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has determined that when a product causes injury absent any negligence, one of two innocent parties must suffer, the victim or the manufacturer. Between consumers on the one hand and manufacturers or suppliers on the other, Pennsylvania has determined that because of the increasingly complex nature of a national market economy, “[those] who are engaged in the business of selling or supplying a product may be said to have undertaken and assumed a special responsibility toward the consuming public and are in a position to spread the risk of defective products.” Berkebile v. Brantley Helicopter Corp., 462 Pa. 83, 93, 337 A.2d 893, 898 (1975).

At the same time, not everyone who is injured can get'money from someone else. Not every wrong can have a remedy. “[A]t some point, along the causal chain, the passage of time and the span of distance mandate a cut-off point for liability.” Massagatti v. Everingham by Everingham, 512 Pa. 265, 273, 516 A.2d 672, 676 (1986). Life has its risks, and ability to pay on the part of a defendant does not automatically mean that a verdict should be entered against it.

To reach a just result, the courts must apply a balancing test and use common sense to arrive at a public policy consistent with the needs of the community.

In the instant circumstance, if the manufactur[200]*200ers, using due care, could not have known that ingestion of DES causes genital-tract injury to daughters of DES mothers, they could not have anticipated defects in the third generation, or grandchildren of the women that took the drug. Even if there were other problems with offspring of DES mothers, problems in the third generation should be considered so remote as to be unforeseeable. For example, if there were a tendency of children of DES mothers to develop kidney cancer, this would not indicate any kind of problems in the third generation.

At the same time, if proper animal tests or other research would have shown genital defects in offspring of DES mothers, it would not be unforeseeable that those genital problems could result in premature births and other defects in the grandchildren.

With respect to the claim under section 402Á of the Restatement of Torts, liability should stop with the second generation. Again, there must be a balancing test. It may be proper in some circumstances to impose liability on an innocent manufacturer on a “share the risk” theory. At the same time, there must be some line drawn to allow manufacturers freedom to experiment with new products without risking bankruptcy if there is some adverse result they could not have foreseen even if exercising all due care. The offspring of those exposed to the product seems an appropriate place to stop.

It should be noted that establishing an arbitrary limit for section 402A liability is not new to the area of pharmaceutical products. Comment K of section 402A of the Restatement of Torts points out that because of the desire to bring new products to the market that could save lives, one does not want to place such an onerous burden on manufacturers [201]*201that research will be discouraged. “The seller of such [unavoidably unsafe] products, again with the qualification that they are properly prepared and marketed, and proper warning is given, where the situation calls for it, is not to be held to strict liability for unfortunate consequences attending , their use, merely because he has undertaken to supply the public with an apparently useful and desirable product. . . ’’Restatement (Second) of Torts, §402A, comment K.

Therefore, eliminating strict liability for third-generation injuries has only a minor practical effect in the DES litigation. It appears the only way plaintiffs get to a strict-liability argument is if they can show that the manufacturers (fid not reasonably test for efficacy. If the product did not work to preserve pregnancies, then the protection of comment K may not be available for the manufacturers. However, if the manufacturers were negligent in not properly testing for efficacy, they probably also were negligent in not testing for safety, so there is no need for plaintiffs to rely on section 402A of the Restatement. The elimination of strict liability for third-generation injuries would only make a difference if the manufacturers were negligent iii not reasonably testing for efficacy but not negligent in testing for safety. Then, absent this ruling, there could be recovery under section 402A but not under negligence.

It is recognized that, to some extent, the rules laid down in this case are not derived from legal theory as much as from the factual situation of the litigation and a determination of public policy. However, this is the way the common law has evolved. Courts have always recognized that imposing legal liability on a party must end at some point. That end point is usually determined by considering common-law [202]*202principles in light of social policy concerns.

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Related

Berkebile v. Brantly Helicopter Corp.
337 A.2d 893 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1975)
Mazzagatti v. Everingham by Everingham
516 A.2d 672 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1986)
Niederman v. Brodsky
261 A.2d 84 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1970)
Yandrich v. Radic
433 A.2d 459 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1981)
Knaub v. Gotwalt
220 A.2d 646 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1966)
Sinn v. Burd
404 A.2d 672 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1979)
Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co.
162 N.E. 99 (New York Court of Appeals, 1928)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
5 Pa. D. & C.4th 197, 1989 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 56, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/demayo-v-schmitt-pactcomplphilad-1989.