Product liability bill dismantled by law lobby, dies in House subcommittee

By Jacob Hall

January 18, 2024 via The Iowa Standard

Legislation to provide liability protections to manufacturers and retailers suffered a setback in an Iowa House subcommittee meeting on Wednesday. Though it sounded like House Study Bill 508 would be advanced with amendments necessary, the bill was later declared dead by a unanimous 3-0 vote.

Business interests as well as the insurance industry supported the legislation, but the law lobby took apart the bill with their arguments.

Brad Hartkopf with the Iowa Association of Business and Industry spoke in support of the bill, calling its contents “common sense updates” to the product liability code.

Hartkopf said manufacturers spend “extraordinary” resources and time to ensure products meet safety standards. And he pointed out the COVID-19 vaccines are not covered by the bill.

Chip Baltimore, who represents Trial Lawyers for Justice, said he was “struggling” to figure out what the legislature was doing with the bill.

The way this bill is written, it codifies immunity for inaction as long as the product was OK at the time it was first placed into the stream of commerce,” Baltimore said.

Lead-based paint was OK at the time it was put into the stream of commerce, he added.

“Data came to light later on that showed that it wasn’t,” Baltimore said. “And this bill immunizes inaction of a manufacturer for not rectifying that situation. Could be years after it was first placed in the stream of commerce. But yet we’re going to continue to give them immunity.”

Baltimore acknowledged manufacturers are important in Iowa, but noted a “long history of problematic problems” that were considered OK when put into the stream of commerce.

“How many products in this country are not made here,” Baltimore said. “What companies are we truly protecting? Not just Iowa companies. You’re protecting Chinese companies, who manufacture a lot of stuff.”

Doug Struyk, who represents the Iowa State Bar Association, cited concerns that inserting protections for leases and rents into the exclusion makes the bill “much more broad” than he believes anyone anticipated.

The bar association has “significant concerns” that the requirement or duty to warn is ended with the bill language.

“You think about somebody who is leasing or renting a product and knows that it has a dangerous defect and we now remove the requirement for them to notify someone or train someone on that, that we believe is the impact of this language,” Struyk said.

In 2022, there was just one jury trial related to product liability in Iowa. Only nine cases were filed.

“This is not a huge, pressing issue,” Struyk said.

While proponents of the bill pointed out the proposal doesn’t include the COVID vaccines in liability protections, Struyk said it exempts them because the shots already are exempted from liability due to a law passed by the legislature in 2020.

“Not sure that everybody in the legislature would say today, ‘Gosh, those things were so jolly good and nobody got sick from those that we should exempt them from liability,'” Struyk said. “But the state did. The state did. They did that in 2020. Now, with this bill we’re looking at creating a presumption that because the government stamped something, we’re going to presume that you’re safe.”

Struyk threw out examples such as dioxin, asbestos, dicamba, glyphosate, automated cars, Boeing F737 planes like the one that lost its door recently and also various drugs approved by the FDA.

“We don’t believe Iowa’s law is broken,” Struyk said. “This is certainly not something where we have a landslide of cases in Iowa.”

Brittany Lumley, who represents the Iowa Insurance Institute, said it is a “good, pro-business bill.”

Kellie Paschke, who represents the Iowa Association for Justice, lamented the fact the legislature is again aiming to limit someone’s liability at the expense of Iowa victims. She cited a history of safety problems with airbags, tobacco and earplugs used by the military.

Lisa Davis-Cook, who is also with the Iowa Association for Justice, shared a personal story from when she was 11 years old. While at the leader of her 4H group’s home, the furnace exploded and injured 27 people.

“Some as little as treat and release and some were in the hospital for the better part of the summer at the University of Iowa Burn Clinic,” she said. “I was one of the lucky ones. I was only burnt about 25 percent of my body and was in the hospital until the end of May when my friend and hospital roommate and I convinced our doctor to let us out of the hospital so we could go see our friends on the last day of school before summer break.”

It turned out that the company that manufactured the furnace and the company that manufactured the valve knew the valve was faulty.

“I’ve always told people, I’ve gone through childbirth three times in my life and burns once,” she said. “I’d take childbirth any day of the week. It was the most excruciating injury I have ever had in my life.

“And it was all because they knew, they knew there was a problem and it was cheaper for them to keep that product on the market than to recall it and keep people safe.”

The bill would tell companies they don’t need to worry about news of safety concerns as long as they meet the original safety standards.

“I’m begging you, don’t do that for Iowans,” she said. “For me and the people just like me who have been hurt by those products. It was awful to feel that your life is so worthless to somebody sitting in a board room. Thinking that them making money on this or saving money on their insurance is more important than what happens to Iowans.”

Samantha Fett testified against the bill due to concerns related to medical freedom. Fett asked if information about the liability protections would be provided to patients to make an informed decision before use of the product.

“Typically consumers don’t find out that a product is faulty until there is a lawsuit,” she said. “I think that’s too late.”

Democrat State Rep. Sami Scheetz said he wouldn’t sign off in support of the bill. Scheetz said he received a lot of communications against the bill from people with “very conservative leanings” as well as “very progressive leanings.”

Republican State Rep. John Wills said he doesn’t have the desire to grant immunity to manufacturers but is interested in providing retailers some form of immunity and said he’d be interested in signing off in support to bring that forward. Wills said he’d prefer to drop the entire thing, however, unless subcommittee chair Republican Rep. Charley Thomson had an interest in working on the retailers’ section.

Thomson said he has a lot of concerns about the bill but agreed he would like to look at retail exclusions and noted he’d sign off on the bill with a statement he wants to see some changes.

Shortly after the subcommittee, however, the bill was declared dead by a 3-0 vote according to the legislative website.

Thomson told The Iowa Standard that while the third-party resellers portion has merit, the rest of the bill requires at least “considerable revision.”

“The bill will likely be redrafted and presented for consideration next session,” Thomson said.