This bill has been updated to incorporate additional reporting
A bill to protect hospitals and clinics from liability if they administer unsafe drugs or other products to patients has come close to the finish line in the Oregon Legislature, but it's unclear if it will survive lawmakers’ end-of-session crunch.
Supporters say the bill addresses an Oregon Supreme Court ruling last year that concluded that the Providence hospital system could be held liable for injuries caused to an unborn child whose mother was given Zofran, an anti-nausea medication, during an emergency room visit. The child was born with irreparable heart defects.
SB 1173A would exempt hospitals, clinics, medical practices and others from product liability if they deliver medical products that cause harm, so long as they didn’t make or design the product or offer it for sale to the public. The bill is supported by groups including the Oregon Medical Association and the Oregon Hospital Association, and is opposed by the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association.
The 2024 court ruling “threatens the viability of medical practice in Oregon,” argued the medical and hospital associations in submitted testimony. “SB 1173 offers a timely and necessary correction.”
Trial lawyers, however, said providers are misrepresenting the significance of a ruling that merely affirmed existing law.
“Product liability law was intended to incentivize all those in the chain of commerce to protect consumers from dangerous and defective products,” wrote Robert Beatty-Walters, a Portland attorney. “The purpose behind the law is to spread the risk of loss caused by defective products away from the innocent consumer and to the entities in the chain of commerce for the defective product that profit from the sale of the product.”
Bill gained new life despite opposition
The end of legislative sessions in Oregon are usually marked by behind-the-scenes bargaining. The lawsuit protection bill recently gained new life, sparking speculation that House Republicans had made passage of the liability bill a condition of their cooperation as Democrats push to pass a transportation package under an abbreviated timeline.
The liability bill was sponsored by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but appeared stalled in the Senate Rules Committee until it gained new life in June, with an amended version passing the Senate in a bipartisan 27-2 vote on June 23.
The bill the. received a hearing in the House Rules Committee on June 24 and was scheduled for a vote on June 25 — only to have the committee cancel its meeting during a tumultuous day in which a bomb squad visited the Capitol to examine a suspicious package.
Bills typically are not scheduled for a vote during the end-of session crush unless they have the support of legislative leadership. Lawmakers must shut down the session by Sunday. But since the bill has not gotten a new vote scheduled, the bill's fate is unclear.
Lara Johnson, a Eugene attorney and past president of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association, wrote in testimony that “the only remedy for Oregonians injured by unreasonably dangerous, defective drugs may be a product liability case against the seller or distributor of those defective drugs,” such as a hospital. Adding that such lawsuits against hospitals are rare, she said “there is no need to change long-standing Oregon law that protects consumers when they are injured by dangerously defective products through no fault of their own.”