Amazon to Argue It Didn’t Supply Powder Tied to Ohio Teen Death

Amazon.com Inc. is set to argue for the second time in two months that it’s protected from state law liability over a product sold on its marketplace—this time in a virtual oral argument before the Ohio Supreme Court over a teenager’s death from caffeine powder.

At issue in the Wednesday videoconference argument is a February 2019 appeals court decision that said Amazon wasn’t a “supplier” subject to liability under Ohio product liability law because it provided only a service and platform for the sale of the product.

Amazon has frequently faced the question of whether it’s a supplier or seller under various states’ laws. Most courts have sided with Amazon, but a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said last year it qualified as a seller under Pennsylvania law.

The full Third Circuit, however, agreed to hear the issue and vacated that ruling. In oral arguments in February, some judges indicated the liability question might be best addressed by the Pennsylvania top court.

The Ninth Circuit is also facing a similar liability question under California law.

Ohio Argument

Dennis Stiner’s suit in Ohio is also at least one of two pending against Amazon that involve a fatality. In another case, it’s being sued over a sale of poppy seeds to an Arkansas man who allegedly made them into a tea for insomnia that contained enough morphine for an overdose.

Stiner’s son, Ohio high school senior Logan Stiner, age 18, died in 2014 from cardiac arrhythmia and a seizure allegedly caused by Hard Rhino Pure Caffeine powder, which was sold by a third party on the retailer’s website.

He sued Amazon, the alleged third-party seller, and the friend of his son’s who allegedly provided the powder. Amazon failed to follow its own procedures for the safety of consumers and the public in advertising, supplying and selling an unsafe product, he alleges.

Amazon was dismissed from the suit, and an Ohio appeals court affirmed on the basis that Amazon wasn’t a “supplier” under state law. The law defines a supplier as someone who, in the course of business, “sells, distributes, leases, prepares, blends, packages, labels, or otherwise participates in” putting a product into the stream of commerce, according to the appeals court.

But Amazon wasn’t just a “neutral platform” in the sale, Stiner is expected to tell the Ohio top court. It promoted the powder and played an indispensable part in the product’s sale, his argument brief says.

Exonerating Amazon because it didn’t physically handle the powder or take title to it ignores the realities of e-commerce and Amazon’s crucial role in the transaction, Stiner says. Holding Amazon liable as a supplier also would serve the purposes of Ohio product liability law which are to promote safety, prevent distribution of dangerous products, and shift risks away from injured consumers and to entities that can spread the costs associated with such injuries, he says.

Amazon, however, is likely to counter that it “never had any contact with the caffeine powder at all.” Third parties provided all of the website content and delivered the powder directly to the purchaser, it says in its own filing.

And Stiner’s policy arguments have been nearly unanimously rejected by courts nationwide, it says.

A separate question regularly litigated in Amazon cases is whether the federal Communications Decency Act shields the company from liability for third-party sales on its web marketplace. That’s not at issue in this appeal.

The case is Stiner v. Amazon.com, Inc., Ohio, No. 2019-0488, argument 4/29/20.