What Must You Prove in a Georgia Failure-to-Warn Claim?
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That the manufacturer or seller had a duty to warn of a danger arising from the product’s reasonable use, that it breached the duty, and that the breach caused the injury. Georgia recognizes two separate ways to breach: an inadequate warning, and inadequate communication of the warning (Camden Oil Co. v. Jackson, 2004). If the injured person never read the warning, only the second theory remains.
The duty
The Court of Appeals described the duty in Camden Oil as one to “warn of foreseeable dangers arising from the reasonable use for which the product is intended”, which “requires the exercise of reasonable care to inform third persons of the dangerous condition or of the facts which make the product likely to become dangerous”. For manufacturers, O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c) adds that nothing in the ten-year product repose “shall relieve a manufacturer from the duty to warn of a danger arising from use of a product once that danger becomes known to the manufacturer”.
Two ways to breach the duty
| Inadequate warning (content) | Inadequate communication (placement and presentation) | |
|---|---|---|
| The claim | The words did not adequately describe the risk | The warning was not effectively brought to the user's attention |
| If the user did not read it | Claim fails: "the adequacy of the warning's contents cannot be a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries" | Claim survives: failure to read "may be circumstantial evidence of the inadequacy of the warning" |
| Evidence used | The text of the warning and expert testimony about what it should have said | Location, size, visibility, and format of the warning |
Camden Oil arose from a gasoline fire when a man filled a portable container at a service station. Because he had not read the posted warning, the court held the station was entitled to judgment on the adequacy of the warning’s contents, but the claim that the station failed to communicate the warning adequately went forward.
Causation is its own element
The injured person must connect the warning failure to the harm. Camden Oil framed this as proximate cause: an unread warning’s wording cannot have caused the injury. The practical questions are whether the user saw the warning, whether a different warning would have changed what the user did, and whether the danger was one the user already understood.
When the warning goes to someone other than the user
For prescription drugs and medical devices, the manufacturer’s duty runs to the prescribing doctor under the learned intermediary doctrine. In McCombs v. Synthes (U.S.A.) (2003), the Supreme Court of Georgia stated that the manufacturer “does not have a duty to warn the patient of the dangers involved with the product, but instead has a duty to warn the patient’s doctor”, and that those warnings “must be adequate or reasonable under the circumstances of the case”. See the learned intermediary doctrine in Georgia.
Warning claims alongside other defects
A warning claim can be brought alongside design or manufacturing claims about the same product; the differences are set out in manufacturing defect, design defect, or failure to warn. A user’s own misuse also bears on the warning question, because the duty extends to reasonable, foreseeable uses; see how misusing a product affects a Georgia claim.
Evidence to keep
- The product, its packaging, labels, and instruction manual.
- Photographs of any posted or printed warning where the product was sold or used.
- The injured person’s account of what they saw and read.
- Any recall notices or later warnings the manufacturer issued.
Sources
- O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(c).
- Camden Oil Co. v. Jackson, 270 Ga. App. 837 (2004)
- McCombs v. Synthes (U.S.A.), 277 Ga. 252 (2003)
General information about Georgia law as of October 2026. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.