Gorsuch, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 17–1104
AIR AND LIQUID SYSTEMS CORP., ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ROBERTA G. DEVRIES, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS ADMINISTRATRIX OF THE ESTATE OF JOHN B. DEVRIES, DECEASED, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
[March 19, 2019]
Justice Gorsuch, with whom Justice Thomas and Justice Alito join, dissenting.
Decades ago, many of the defendants before us sold “bare metal” products to the Navy. Things like the turbines used to propel its ships. Did these manufacturers have to warn users about the dangers of asbestos that someone else later chose to add to or wrap around their products as insulation?
Start with a couple of things we can all agree on. First, everyone accepts that, under traditional tort principles, the manufacturers who actually supplied the later-added asbestos had to warn about its known dangers. Second, everyone agrees that the court of appeals erred when it came to analyzing the duties of the bare metal defendants. The court of appeals held that the bare metal manufacturers had a duty to warn because they could have “foreseen” the possibility that others would later use asbestos in conjunction with their products. Today, the Court rightly rejects this “foreseeability” standard, succinctly explaining that “[r]equiring a product manufacturer to imagine and warn about all of those possible uses–with massive liability looming for failure to correctly predict how its product
