BOSTON—A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week vacated a lower court’s summary judgment in favor of a group of manufacturers in a product liability case involving Massachusetts’ “sophisticated user” defense.

The case—Suzanne Genereux vs. American Beryllia Corp. et al—involved a worker who came into contact with the element beryllium while working at Raytheon Co.’s Waltham, Mass. plant. The employee, Ms. Genereux, became ill with what was eventually diagnosed as chronic beryllium disease. Ms. Genereux, her husband and their children filed suit against Raytheon and several beryllium manufacturers in Massachusetts state court in 2004. The case was moved to federal district court a few months at the request of two of the defendants.

The district court dismissed all counts against Raytheon and all but three of the manufacturers. The remaining defendants argued, among other things, that Ms. Genereux’s case was barred by both a statute of limitations and the state’s “sophisticated user” doctrine.

According to the appeals court decision, the district court “noted that the sophisticated user doctrine relieves a manufacturer of liability for failing to warn when the ‘end user’ knows or reasonably should know of a product’s dangers. After determining that Raytheon was the end user, the court concluded that Raytheon ‘had substantial knowledge of the dangers of beryllium exposure’” and awarded summary judgment in favor of the defendants. The Genereux family appealed.

The appeals court concluded that “there are genuine issues of fact about whether Raytheon knew or should have known of” two particular dangers relating to beryllium: polishing beryllium metals without protective measures; and exposure to very small amounts of beryllium.

After discussing the particular circumstances of Ms. Genereux’s exposure, the appeals court panel held that “we cannot conclude, for purposes of summary judgment, that Genereux’s employer was sufficiently knowledgeable of the dangers she faced to relieve the appellees of their duty to warn Genereux of those dangers.”

The appeals court remanded the case to the lower court for further consideration.