Dicie Ellen Hibley Swayze, Legal Guardian and Next Friend of Michael Wayne Swayze v. McNeil Laboratories, Inc.

I respectfully dissent. My brethren view too narrowly the scope of the duty imposed on McNeil to provide “adequate warnings” with inherently unsafe prescription drugs. Settled law holds McNeil liable for the harm the drugs actually and proximately cause if no “learned intermediary” intervenes or if McNeil knows that the drugs will be utilized in a widespread practice of illegal and dangerous medical activity. McNeil cannot immunize itself from liability simply by providing “adequately” written warnings that as a practical matter will not effect prophylaxis. Rather, such drugs with…