## Facts

- Glenn E. Crocker, a 49-year-old carpenter, suffered a double hernia and severe finger injuries requiring multiple procedures, including partial amputations.
- Physicians prescribed Demerol and Talwin (pentazocine), a synthetic analgesic manufactured by Winthrop.
- Crocker’s surgeon told him Talwin had no addicting side effects, consistent with the manufacturer’s promotional claims.
- The jury found Winthrop positively misrepresented Talwin as non-addictive.
- Crocker became addicted, sought prescriptions from multiple doctors, and purchased the drug without prescription in Mexico under the name “Sosigon.”
- After detoxification, Crocker—then with reduced drug tolerance—obtained and injected another narcotic, collapsed, and died.
- Crocker’s widow sued for (1) Crocker’s pain and suffering before death and (2) wrongful death damages, alleging misrepresentation and failure to warn.
- The jury found Winthrop’s misrepresentation was a producing cause of Crocker’s addiction and death, but also found that, given medical knowledge at the time, Winthrop could not reasonably have foreseen addiction in an appreciable number of persons.
- The trial court entered judgment for the plaintiff; the court of civil appeals reversed and rendered for Winthrop based on the foreseeability finding.

## Issues

1. Whether a manufacturer avoids liability for affirmative misrepresentation that a drug is non-addictive when addiction was not reasonably foreseeable given medical knowledge at the time and the user’s susceptibility.
2. Whether a jury finding of non-foreseeability negates liability when the jury also finds the misrepresentation was a producing cause of the user’s addiction and death.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas reversed the court of civil appeals and affirmed the trial court’s judgment for the plaintiff.
- The court held the jury’s non-foreseeability finding did not bar recovery on the misrepresentation theory.
- The court treated the claim as based on affirmative misrepresentation, not on negligent failure to discover or warn of risks.
- The jury’s producing-cause finding supported liability notwithstanding the separate finding that addiction was not reasonably foreseeable at the time.

## Legal Principles

- A manufacturer that affirmatively represents a drug as non-addictive may be liable if the representation is found false and a producing cause of the user’s addiction and resulting death.
- Lack of reasonable foreseeability of the specific harm, based on then-current medical knowledge, does not provide a complete defense to liability for a positive misrepresentation.
- A “state of medical knowledge” finding may limit negligence-based theories, but it does not negate causation or wrongfulness when liability rests on an express safety representation relied upon in use of the product.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court reinstated the plaintiff’s judgment, holding that a drug manufacturer’s affirmative misrepresentation that its product was non-addictive remained actionable when found to be a producing cause of addiction and death, even though addiction was not reasonably foreseeable under the medical knowledge available when the product was marketed.


Crocker v. Winthrop Lab., Div. of Sterling Drug, Inc., 514 S.W.2d 429 (Tex. 1974)