In January of this year, the highest courts of two states adopted sections of the Restatements of the Law. Those opinions are summarized below.
In Wynkoop v. Stratthaus, 2016 WL 194028 (Jan. 15, 2016), the Supreme Court of Vermont adopted Restatement Third of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment § 28(1). The case involved a dispute over property rights following the dissolution of a relationship between unmarried co-lessees of a parcel of land. One party, who had purportedly been ousted from the land, sought partition of the property and compensation for her ouster. The trial court entered judgment on a bench trial partitioning the leasehold and making various determinations as to the value of each party’s contributions to improvements on the land, including crediting the plaintiff with “sweat equity” for her work in constructing the parties’ residence. Affirming in part and reversing in part, this court held that cases, like this one, involving “property owned by unmarried partners in a marriage-like relationship” had to be decided based on equitable principles. Citing Restatement Third of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment § 28, Comment d, the court determined that costs of physical labor, like the “sweat equity” claimed here, could be recovered as part of the equitable division of property. The court adopted § 28(1) of the Restatement and directed the trial court to apply § 28(1) in making its property division, noting that that section “specifically addresse[d] the application of unjust enrichment principles in the context of property distribution of unmarried cohabitants” and had been relied on by Vermont courts in the past.
In Watts v. Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp., 2016 WL 237777 (Jan. 21, 2016), the Supreme Court of Arizona adopted the learned-intermediary doctrine set out in Restatement Third of Torts: Products Liability § 6(d). In that case, a patient who developed drug-induced lupus and hepatitis after taking a prescription acne medication brought a products-liability action against the drug’s manufacturer, alleging that the drug was defective and unreasonably dangerous because the manufacturer failed to adequately warn of the risks of using it for more than 12 weeks. In the course of its analysis, the court determined, as a matter of first impression, that it would follow the learned-intermediary doctrine, under which a manufacturer satisfied its duty to warn consumers of risks of harm from their products by giving adequate warnings to a learned intermediary, such as a health-care provider. The court stated, “[i]n our view, the Third Restatement properly states the [learned-intermediary doctrine], and therefore we adopt § 6(d) as our expression of it.” Applying the doctrine in this case, the court vacated the superior court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s claim and remanded for further proceedings, concluding that the plaintiff’s complaint adequately alleged that the warnings given by the defendant to both plaintiff and plaintiff’s health-care provider were inadequate. The court noted that its adoption of § 6(d) was consistent with its practice of following the Restatements of the Law in the absence of controlling Arizona precedent.
The Institute is currently working on other portions of the Restatement Third of Torts—Restatement Third, Torts: Intentional Torts to Persons, and Restatement Third, Torts: Liability for Economic Harm. To learn more about these projects, visit the projects page.