Liebig v. MTD Products, Inc., et al., Civ. No. 2:22-cv-04427, 2023 WL 5517557 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 25, 2023)

A product may be defective if it is sold without adequate warnings. But what if a manufacturer learns new safety information after a product is already on the market? Must the manufacturer track down every buyer of its product to issue updated warnings? Some plaintiffs advance the theory of a “post-sale duty to warn,” but a recent federal trial court decision recognized important limitations on that theory.

In Liebig, the plaintiff claimed he had been injured by an allegedly defective snow thrower. Among the theories of liability included in the complaint, the plaintiff alleged that the product manufacturer had failed to issue post-sale warnings about the defective nature of the snow thrower.

The District Court cited the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Walton v. AVCO Corp., 610 A.2d 454 (Pa. 1992), which recognized a post-sale duty to warn on the part of a helicopter manufacturer. However, the court noted, that duty was limited to circumstances where it would be feasible to impart warnings to consumers after a product has been purchased. Helicopters are “are sold in a small and distinct market”; in contrast, mass-marketed and mass-produced products are much harder to track down, especially if they may be re-sold on the secondary market. Further, helicopters may require service and maintenance, which provides a logical point of contact through which to distribute warnings. In contrast, a consumer product like a snow thrower is mass-produced, may be re-sold (the product in Liebig, in fact, was allegedly purchased from an anonymous seller at a flea market), and lacks a centralized point of contact through which to distribute warnings.

The Liebig court found that the post-sale duty to warn is “narrow” and applies only to “unusual products sold in small and distinct markets”—those products for which it is feasible to find downstream buyers and issue additional warnings.

If faced with such a claim, it is important to emphasize that it is the exception, rather than the rule, and to highlight the factors that would make it impractical to identify and track down all current owners of the product.