Amazon Loses Bid to Toss Suit Tying Fatal Overdose to Tea

Amazon.com Inc. lost its argument that the estate of an Arkansas man has insufficiently linked his morphine-overdose death to drinking a tea that he made from poppy seeds purchased through the company’s marketplace.

Amazon and retailer Sincerely Nuts argued that Stephen Patrick Hacala Jr. broke the chain of causation when, to try and combat insomnia, he made the tea from the unwashed seeds.

But Hacala’s father has adequately pleaded claims for strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas ruled Oct. 11. The court threw out a claim under the Arkansas ...