## Facts

- Firefighters Kevin P. Higgins and Ronald Jones used DuPont’s Imron polyurethane enamel system to paint fire apparatus at their Baltimore City firehouse, not in a dedicated paint shop.
- The Baltimore City Fire Department received the Imron products at stations in unmarked cans without labels, warnings, or instructions.
- Plaintiffs asserted survival and wrongful death claims after twins born to the families of Higgins, Jones, and Mary Williams died at or shortly after birth.
- Imron contained glycol ether acetates supplied in bulk to DuPont by Eastman and Union Carbide via rail cars and tank trucks.
- DuPont reprocessed those chemicals into its paint product and sold the finished paint to the Fire Department.
- The record showed DuPont had substantial knowledge, including internal documentation, about potential teratogenic effects of glycol ether acetates by at least 1980.
- Eastman and Union Carbide provided DuPont with technical literature and warnings regarding potential teratogenic risks of the chemicals.
- Plaintiffs pursued negligence, strict liability, and breach of warranty claims against Eastman and Union Carbide, each premised on failure to warn end users.

## Issues

1. Whether bulk suppliers of hazardous constituent chemicals owe a duty to warn ultimate users of a finished product when the suppliers sold only to a sophisticated manufacturer that reformulated and marketed the finished product.
2. Whether the suppliers discharged any duty to warn by providing adequate warnings and risk information to the sophisticated intermediary.

## Decision

- The court granted summary judgment for Eastman and Union Carbide on all claims.
- The court held that, under the bulk supplier/sophisticated intermediary analysis, the suppliers owed no direct duty to warn the firefighters or their families.
- The court found DuPont was a sophisticated manufacturer with equal or greater ability to evaluate the risks and to communicate warnings downstream.
- The court concluded the suppliers adequately warned DuPont, and any failure to warn end users was not attributable to the bulk suppliers on these facts.

## Legal Principles

- A bulk supplier of industrial chemicals may satisfy its warning obligation by providing adequate warnings to a knowledgeable, sophisticated purchaser that is reasonably expected to pass appropriate warnings to downstream users.
- When the intermediary has substantial, documented knowledge of the hazard and controls formulation, labeling, and marketing of the finished product, the supplier generally has no additional duty to warn ultimate users.
- Where duty to warn is absent under the bulk supplier/sophisticated intermediary framework, negligence, strict-liability failure-to-warn, and warning-based warranty theories fail as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

Summary judgment was entered for the bulk chemical suppliers because DuPont was a sophisticated intermediary that had been adequately informed of the relevant risks and was better positioned to warn downstream users of hazards associated with the finished paint product.


Higgins v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 671 F. Supp. 1055 (D. Md. 1987)