Boone v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

The plaintiff, the executrix of the estate of the decedent, M, sought to recover damages from the defendants, alleging that a certain brand- name anticoagulant medication they had designed, manufactured or sold wrongfully caused M's death. The defendants had received approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration to market the medication, and, for some time, M took the medication without signifi- cant side effects. Several years later, M suffered a gastrointestinal bleed and subsequently died. The plaintiff alleged that the defendants negli- gently failed to give adequate warnings, directions, and instructions to guard against the risk of bleeding caused by the medication and to investigate the benefits of establishing a therapeutic range for its admin- istration. The plaintiff also alleged that the medication was defectively designed due to the absence of a reversal agent. The trial court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on the claim relating to the absence of a reversal agent, concluding, inter alia, that it was pre- empted by federal law. Thereafter, the plaintiff filed a request to charge, asking the court to instruct the jury that the defendants had improperly failed to maintain certain materials for the purpose of discovery, specifi- cally, that they had lost or destroyed files of a former employee, L, while litigating prior federal actions relating to the medication, and that the jury could draw an adverse inference from the loss or destruction of such materials. At the conclusion of the trial, the court issued a spoliation instruction. The trial court also granted in part the defendants' motion in limine, seeking to exclude evidence, testimony, or argument regarding their failure to test reagrading a certain dose of the medication on the ground that a failure to test claim was preempted by federal law. The jury returned a verdict for the defendants, finding that, although the defendants negligently failed to give adequate war

Buy and Sell Contract—Mineral Rights—Warranty Deed—Negligence—Breach of Contract—Statute of Limitations—Third Party—Cause of Action—Accrual Date. The Bells hired Orr Land Company LLC (Orr) and its employee Ellerman to represent them in selling their real property. Orr found a buyer and the Bells entered into a buy and sell contract with the buyer, which provided, as pertinent here, that the sale excluded all oil, gas, and mineral rights in the property. Orr then retained Land Title Guarantee Company (Land Title) to draft closing documents, including the warranty deed. In 2005 the Bells signed the warranty deed and sold the property to the buyer. The Bells didn't know that the warranty deed prepared by Land Title didn't contain any language reserving the Bells' mineral rights as provided in the buy and sell contract. For over nine years, the Bells continued to receive the mineral owner's royalty payments due under an oil and gas lease on the property. In 2014 the lessee oil and gas company learned that the Bells didn't own the mineral rights, so it began sending the payments to the buyer. After that, the Bells discovered that the warranty deed didn't reserve their mineral rights as provided in the buy and sell contract. In 2016 the Bells filed this negligence and breach of contract action against defendants Land Title, Orr, and Ellerman. Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that the Bells' claims were untimely because the statute of limitations had run. The district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss. On appeal, the Bells contended that the district court erred in granting defendants' motions to dismiss because they sufficiently alleged facts that, if true, establish that the statute of limitations didn't begin to accrue on their claims until the oil and gas company ceased payment in September 2014, which is when they contended they discovered that the warranty deed didn't reserve their mineral rights. A plaintiff must commence tort actions within two years