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Relearning the Learned Intermediary Doctrine

By Brian Raphel

In'typical product liability cases, the manufacturer owes a duty to the eventual consumer to warn of any risks associated with the product. However, in the context of prescription drug cases, courts have recognized that the prescribing doctors, and not their patients, are in the best position to weigh the risks and benefits of a given drug for a particular patient. Accordingly, courts in nearly every state have embraced some form of the “learned intermediary doctrine,” which provides that a prescription drug manufacturer satisfies its duty to warn so long as it provides an adequate warning of the drug's potential risks to the plaintiff's prescribing doctor.

If the warning is adequate, or even if the doctor was somehow otherwise aware of the risk, then the manufacturer will not be liable, either because it satisfied its duty to warn or because there can be no proximate causation of the plaintiff's injury if the doctor already knew of the risk but prescribed the drug anyway.

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