Brand Name Makers Can Be Liable for Generic Drug Label Omissions, Ala. High Court Rules

MOBILE, Ala. — Under Alabama law, a name brand drug manufacturer may be held liable to the consumer of the drug’s generic equivalent for fraud or misrepresentation based on statements made on the name brand drug’s warning label, the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled.

In a Jan. 11 opinion, the court reasoned that in the context of inadequate warnings by the brand name manufacturer placed on a drug manufactured by a generic manufacturer, “it is not fundamentally unfair to hold the brand name manufacturer liable for warnings on a product it did not produce because the manufacturing process is irrelevant …