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The Sophisticated User Defense in Minnesota: Weighing Knowledge

By Jessica Grossarth and Meenah Kim

Claims involving a failure to warn are often centered around what a reasonable manufacturer or supplier should have foreseen was necessary to avoid creating an unreasonable risk of harm. If a supplier is deemed to have a duty to warn, the duty can be fulfilled by calling the hazards of the product directly to the attention of the eventual user; for example, through product labeling. Greene v. A.P. Products, Ltd., 691 N.W.2d 38 (Mich.App., 2004). However, when, as is often the case, a product passes through the hands of multiple intermediaries between the supplier and the eventual user, the situation becomes murkier, and it becomes unclear who should shoulder the burden of the duty to warn. This is where the sophisticated user defense comes in.

Under the sophisticated user defense, a supplier has no duty to warn the ultimate user if it has reason to believe that the user will realize its dangerous condition. Gray v. Badger Mining Corp., 676 N.W.2d 268 (Minn. 2004). Different jurisdictions apply the concept in different ways and knowledge of your courts' take on the issue is important. Still, a closer look at how one jurisdiction handled the issue can serve as a jumping-off point for further discussion of the state of the law in other jurisdictions.

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