Amazon found not liable in Ohio teen’s powdered caffeine death
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Retail giant Amazon can’t be held responsible under current Ohio product liability law in the death of a high school senior who ingested powdered caffeine, the state Supreme Court said Thursday.
At issue before the court was whether the state’s law, which predates online commerce, could be applied to the facts of the death of Logan Stiner. The 18-year-old was just days from high school graduation when his brother found him unresponsive in their family’s home southwest of Cleveland in May 2014.
Stiner died of cardiac arrhythmia and seizure from acute caffeine toxicity, a coroner ruled. He had more than 70 micrograms of caffeine per milliliter of blood in his system — as much as 23 times the amount found in the system of a typical coffee or soda drinker.
What was undisputed is that Stiner ingested powdered caffeine given to him by a friend who bought it on Amazon and was using it as a “pre-workout” boost. What the court decided Thursday was the company can’t be held liable in cases where third-party sellers access Amazon’s “fulfillment by Amazon” program.
“Because Amazon does not have a relationship with the manufacturers of third-party products, Amazon lacks control over product safety,” said Justice Judi French, who wrote the court’s unanimous ruling. “Amazon did not choose to offer the caffeine powder for sale and has no role in manufacturing, labeling or packaging the product.”
Justice Michael Donnelly sided with the ruling but said the court was limited by Ohio’s outdated product liability laws. “The divide between the pre-internet age and the current age is so profound that laws like this act might as well have been written in the stone age,” he wrote.
Donnelly suggested that an updating of such laws would ensure “the utmost protection” for Ohio consumers.
Messages were left for Amazon and an attorney. Brian Balser, an attorney representing Stiner’s father, called the decision disappointing but took heart from Donnelly’s arguments.