Failure to Warn Claims in Georgia Product Liability

In Georgia, a failure to warn claim says the maker didn’t adequately tell users about a danger that it knew or reasonably should have known about. Chrysler v. Batten, 264 Ga. 723 (1994), says the duty “arises whenever the manufacturer knows or reasonably should know of the danger arising from the use of its product”. Such a claim can survive the ten-year repose. But it can fail on causation, if the person already knew of the danger or never read the warning.

Two ways to breach

Wilson Foods v. Turner, 218 Ga. App. 74 (1995), separates them, and the difference decides cases.

Type	Complaint	If the person didn't read it
Communication	The warning wasn't placed or delivered effectively	Doesn't bar the claim
Content	The words were inadequate	The person can't rely on content

A father poured hot shortening back into a can he thought was metal, and it melted, burning his son. He hadn’t read any warning. “[F]ailure to read a warning does not bar recovery when the plaintiff is challenging the adequacy of the efforts of the manufacturer or seller to communicate the dangers.” But his case had also gone to the jury on the wording, so the verdict was reversed.

Before anything else, find out what the injured person saw and read. Then decide which theory the facts support.

Whether a duty exists

Foreseeability is necessary but doesn’t end the question. The duty depends on “foreseeability of the use in question, the type of danger involved, and the foreseeability of the user’s knowledge of the danger”, as Exxon v. Jones, 209 Ga. App. 373 (1993), quotes.

Situation	Treatment	Decision
Consumer or foreseeable user	Duty runs to them	CertainTeed v. Fletcher
Daughter exposed through a worker's clothes	No duty, since warnings couldn't reach her	CertainTeed
Patient on a prescription product	Duty runs to the doctor	McCombs v. Synthes
Product sold in bulk to a commercial distributor	Maker's silence not the proximate cause	Exxon v. Jones
Danger known to a group the product is sold to	No need to warn of generally known risks	Eyster, quoted in Exxon
Redesign by a third party	No duty to warn against it	Talley v. City Tank
A pesticide with an EPA-approved label	Deemed sufficient from 2026, with an exception	§ 2-7-171

CertainTeed v. Fletcher, 300 Ga. 327 (2016), says a duty’s existence is a legal question and “is not resolved exclusively on the basis of foreseeability”. It worried that “the mechanism and scope of such warnings would be endless”.

In Exxon v. Jones, gas sold in bulk to a trained distributor leaked into a home and exploded. Any duty in handling the gas after delivery was owed by the distributor. That’s a defense built on the supply chain. Don’t treat it as a blanket rule, because it rested on who was at fault in that delivery and what the distributor knew.

The learned intermediary doctrine covers drugs and devices, and federal preemption covers federally approved labels. The Georgia pesticide provision is in SB 144 (2025).

Known dangers and causation

A warning can’t change the mind of someone who already knew. In Bodymasters v. Wimberley, 232 Ga. App. 170 (1998), a gym user wiped her shoes because she knew they could slip, so “the failure to post signs warning of such danger could not have been the proximate cause of her injury”. Yet her design claim went on. Note what Ogletree v. Navistar, 269 Ga. 443 (1998), did: it abolished the open and obvious rule for design, and it left warnings undecided (“we need not decide that issue today”).

Sheffield v. Conair, 348 Ga. App. 6 (2018), adds that a warning claim fell along with the design claim where there was no evidence of a defective condition. So the danger itself must be proved.

Warnings and the repose

Batten is the central decision: “the legislature carefully excluded failure-to-warn causes of action from the statute of repose”. The 1978 car’s design claims failed, and the warning claim didn’t fail on repose. The court gave no view on the evidence’s sufficiency.

Point	Note
The text	§ 51-1-11(c): no relief from "the duty to warn of a danger arising from use of a product once that danger becomes known to the manufacturer"
Strict liability warning	Barred after ten years, as in PTI Royston v. Eubanks
"Knows or reasonably should know"	Batten's majority language; a separate opinion wanted actual knowledge
Repeat purchases	Burroughs applied repose per unit, and negligent warning claims stayed in that case

The repose exceptions walks through this.

A seller’s warning duty

A seller can face its own claim. In Boyce v. Gregory Poole Equipment, 269 Ga. App. 891 (2004), a dealer didn’t tell a customer about an optional rear guard, and it later gave material discouraging it. Those were jury questions, and the court said “adequate warnings as to the proper or safe use of a product are part of the total design package of the product”.

Warnings in a design case

Warnings also feed the design balance. In Yamaha v. Hall, A26A0228 (2026), the warning claim had been narrowed, but “[t]he contents of Yamaha’s warnings were relevant to the jurors’ analysis” of avoidability, so excluding them was reversible error. A cart bought used with no manual or labels still raised these questions.

What to collect

Item	Purpose
Label, manual, box, inserts, and anything online	What was said, and where
Photos of the labels in place	Placement and legibility
Your account of what you read	Which theory you can use
Earlier versions and later revisions	What changed, and when
Complaints and reports	Notice, under the similarity gate
Marketing materials	What the maker encouraged

A later revision is complicated, since § 24-4-407 restricts some proof of later measures, and rules differ on what comes in for what purpose. Have counsel look at it. A warnings or human factors expert can explain why a label failed, and § 24-7-702 governs whether that testimony is admitted. In a consumer product case, federal reports may also matter.

Sources

• Chrysler v. Batten, 264 Ga. 723
• Wilson Foods v. Turner, 218 Ga. App. 74
• Exxon v. Jones, 209 Ga. App. 373
• CertainTeed v. Fletcher, 300 Ga. 327
• McCombs v. Synthes, 277 Ga. 252
• Talley v. City Tank, 158 Ga. App. 130
• Georgia Senate Bill 144 (2025)
• Bodymasters v. Wimberley, 232 Ga. App. 170
• Ogletree v. Navistar, 269 Ga. 443
• Sheffield v. Conair, 348 Ga. App. 6
• PTI Royston v. Eubanks, 360 Ga. App. 263
• Burroughs v. Strength of Nature Global, 322 Ga. 722
• Boyce v. Gregory Poole Equipment, 269 Ga. App. 891
• Yamaha v. Hall, A26A0228
• Official Code of Georgia Annotated, November 2022 public release: §§ 24-4-407, 24-7-702, 51-1-11

This page was last reviewed in November 2026 for general information. Laws and court decisions can change after that date. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship.