## Facts

- A nurse regularly used latex examination gloves at work and later developed a serious allergy to natural rubber latex.
- She sued a glove manufacturer, alleging the gloves’ latex proteins and other substances caused or aggravated sensitization and allergic reactions.
- The case was the first jury trial in coordinated proceedings involving similar claims by many health-care workers.
- At trial, the plaintiff pursued strict liability (manufacturing defect), negligence, and failure to warn.
- The jury found for the manufacturer on failure to warn and found no proximate causation on negligence, but found a manufacturing defect and awarded nearly $900,000 in compensatory damages.
- The trial court granted the manufacturer judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) on manufacturing defect and also granted a new trial on that issue.
- The plaintiff argued on appeal that her evidence showed the gloves deviated from the intended result or differed from other ostensibly identical units, and that the jury should have been instructed on consumer-expectations design defect.
- Evidence showed the manufacturer adjusted production methods over time to reduce proteins while maintaining barrier integrity; federal regulators did not require specific protein-reduction methods or lot-by-lot protein testing during the relevant period.

## Issues

1. Whether substantial evidence supported strict products-liability manufacturing defect under the test requiring proof of deviation from the manufacturer’s intended result or from other ostensibly identical units.
2. Whether the trial court applied an incorrect manufacturing-defect standard in granting JNOV.
3. Whether the trial court erred by refusing to instruct the jury on a consumer-expectations design-defect theory for latex gloves used in health-care settings.

## Decision

- The court affirmed JNOV for the manufacturer on the manufacturing-defect verdict.
- The court held the plaintiff failed, as a matter of law, to present substantial evidence that the gloves she used deviated from the manufacturer’s intended result or differed from other ostensibly identical gloves in the same product line.
- The court treated the plaintiff’s proof—criticizing protein levels and the timing of protein-reduction measures—as an attack on design choices or negligence, not proof of a manufacturing deviation in the units used.
- The court upheld the refusal to give a consumer-expectations design-defect instruction for latex gloves in professional medical use.
- Because JNOV was proper, the new-trial order on manufacturing defect was not warranted.

## Legal Principles

- A strict-liability manufacturing defect requires proof the product was substantially different from the manufacturer’s intended result, or differed from other ostensibly identical units of the same product line.
- Evidence that a product could have been made safer by adopting different processes sooner generally addresses design defect or negligence, not manufacturing defect, unless tied to a deviation in the specific units at issue.
- Where alleged harm turns on technical performance and tradeoffs (e.g., allergen content versus barrier integrity), ordinary consumer expectations may be insufficiently developed to support a consumer-expectations design-defect instruction.
- Criticism of a manufacturer’s chosen specifications or process tradeoffs does not establish a manufacturing defect absent evidence of departure from those specifications in the product used by the plaintiff.

## Conclusion

The court upheld judgment for the manufacturer by holding that allegations of “too much allergen” without proof of deviation from intended specifications or from other identical units do not establish a manufacturing defect, and that a consumer-expectations design-defect theory was properly withheld for technically complex latex-glove performance in health-care settings.


In re Coordinated Latex Glove Litigation, 99 Cal. App. 4th 594, 121 Cal. Rptr. 2d 301 (Cal. Ct. App. 2002)