On April 29, 2015, the Alabama Senate passed a bill, SB80, “to provide that a manufacturer is not liable . . . for damages resulting from a product it did not design, manufacture, sell, or lease.” Sponsored by Senator Cam Ward, the bill supersedes the Alabama Supreme Court’s controversial holding in Wyeth, Inc. v. Weeks, No. 1101397, 2014 WL 4055813 (Ala. Aug. 15, 2014).
Weeks represented the only instance in which a state supreme court held that a brand drug manufacturer, or innovator, could be liable for injuries caused by a generic version of the drug that the innovator did not manufacture because of the innovator’s primary labeling responsibilities. Weeks held that it was foreseeable that patients and medical practitioners would read and rely on the innovator’s label, regardless of whether the patient took the innovator’s drug or the generic. By so holding, the court set itself apart from the vast majority of jurisdictions, which have rejected innovator liability.
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