sophisticated user doctrine in Connecticut

2006In response to the plaintiffs’ specific contentions as to why the doctrine has no application to this case, the defendant makes the following assertions: the pace *320 maker is a complex medical device and, therefore, falls within the protection of the doctrine; the doctrine applies to prescription devices regardless of whether the manufacturer has an opportunity to communicate directly with the patient because physicians, as learned intermediaries, still “stand in the best position to evaluate a patient’s needs and assess [the] risks and benefits of a particular course of treatment”; (interna

2001See, e.g., Menschik v. Mid-America Pipeline Co., 812 S.W.2d 861, 864 (Mo. App. 1991) (rationale for learned intermediary exception cannot be stretched to apply to bulk seller of chemicals); Todalen v. U.S. Chemical Co., 424 N.W.2d 73, 79 (Minn. App. 1988) (medical context of learned intermediary doctrine contains significant safeguards to ultimate user that are not present in industrial workplace), overruled on other grounds, Tyroll v. Private Label Chemicals, Inc., 505 N.W.2d 54, 62 (Minn. 1993).

2001See, e.g., Menschik v. Mid-America Pipeline Co., 812 S.W.2d 861, 864 (Mo. App. 1991) (rationale for learned intermediary exception cannot be stretched to apply to bulk seller of chemicals); Todalen v. U.S. Chemical Co., 424 N.W.2d 73, 79 (Minn. App. 1988) (medical context of learned intermediary doctrine contains significant safeguards to ultimate user that are not present in industrial workplace), overruled on other grounds, Tyroll v. Private Label Chemicals, Inc., 505 N.W.2d 54, 62 (Minn. 1993).

2001The sophisticated user doctrine, on the other hand, “protects a manufacturer from liability only if the chain of distribution is such that the duty to warn ultimate users should fall on an intermediary in that chain, rather than on the manufacturer.” In re Brooklyn Navy Yard Asbestos Litigation, 971 F.2d 831, 838 (2d Cir. 1992).

2001See, e.g., Menschik v. Mid-America Pipeline Co., 812 S.W.2d 861, 864 (Mo. App. 1991) (rationale for learned intermediary exception cannot be stretched to apply to bulk seller of chemicals); Todalen v. U.S. Chemical Co., 424 N.W.2d 73, 79 (Minn. App. 1988) (medical context of learned intermediary doctrine contains significant safeguards to ultimate user that are not present in industrial workplace), overruled on other grounds, Tyroll v. Private Label Chemicals, Inc., 505 N.W.2d 54, 62 (Minn. 1993).

1993See, e.g., Little v. Liquid Air Corporation, 939 F.2d 1293 , 1302 (5th Cir. 1991); Donahue v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 866 F.2d 1008 (8th Cir. 1989) (rejecting defendants’ claim that bulk supplier and sophisticated user doctrines operate in tandem).