The Learned Intermediary Doctrine Sees Curious Change In California

Courts across the country have long recognized the learned intermediary doctrine, which holds that a manufacturer of a prescription medication or medical device discharges its duty to warn by providing an adequate warning to the doctor. The doctor, in turn, has a separate duty to weigh the risks and benefits of a particular treatment and convey the appropriate risk information to the patient.

Under the learned intermediary doctrine, to succeed on a failure-to-warn claim, the plaintiff is typically required to come forward with affirmative testimony from the prescribing physician that the physician would have made a different treatment decision had she been provided with a different warning. While plaintiffs often argue that the plaintiff would have made a different treatment decision, most courts have held that this is irrelevant to the learned intermediary analysis. In Himes v. Somatics, LLC, 549 P.3d 916, 921 (Cal. 2024), the California Supreme Court may have