Page:Air and Liquid Systems Corp., et al. v. Roberta G. DeVries, Individually and as Administratrix of the Estate of John B. DeVries, Deceased, et al..pdf/16

Gosruch, J., dissenting

might be used with other products or parts–would impose a difficult and costly burden on manufacturers, while simultaneously overwarning users.” Ante, at 7.

Our disagreement arises only in what comes next. Immediately after rejecting the court of appeals’ approach, the Court proceeds to devise its own way of holding the bare metal manufacturers responsible for later-added asbestos. In the Court’s judgment, the bare metal defendants had a duty to warn about the dangers of asbestos introduced by others so long as they (i) produced a product that “require[d] incorporation of ” asbestos, (ii) “kn[ew] or ha[d] reason to know” that the “integrated product” would be dangerous, and (iii) had “no reason to believe” that users would realize that danger. Ante, at 9–10. The Court’s new three-part standard surely represents an improvement over the court of appeals’ unadorned “foreseeability” offering. But, respectfully, it seems to me to suffer from many of the same defects the Court itself has identified.

In the first place, neither of these standards enjoys meaningful roots in the common law. The common law has long taught that a manufacturer has no “duty to warn or instruct about another manufacturer’s products, though those products might be used in connection with the manufacturer’s own products.” Firestone Steel Prods. Co. v. Barajas, 927 S. W. 2d 608, 616 (Tex. 1996). Instead, “the manufacturer’s duty is restricted to warnings based on the characteristics of the manufacturer’s own product.” Powell v. Standard Brands Paint Co., 166 Cal. App. 3d 357, 364, 212 Cal. Rptr. 395, 398 (1985).^[1] It doesn’t matter, either,
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1. See also, e.g., Dreyer v. Exel Industries, S. A., 326 Fed. Appx. 353, 357–358 (CA6 2009); Barnes v. Kerr Corp., 418 F. 3d 583, 590 (CA6 2005); Reynolds v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 989 F. 2d 465, 472 (CA11 1993); Baughman v. General Motors Corp., 780 F. 2d 1131, 1133 (CA4 1986); In re Deep Vein Thrombosis, 356 F. Supp. 2d 1055, 1068 (ND Cal. 2005); Acoba v. General Tire, Inc., 92 Haw. 1, 18, 986 P. 2d