EAST ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge David Dugan showed little interest in expanding a wrongful death claim into a claim that Amazon protects negligent Chinese suppliers from liability.
He didn’t rule it out at a hearing on June 8, but indicated he would.
Sandra Scott of Nashville sued Chinese entity Global Vasion and Amazon in 2020.
Her counsel Mark Schuver of Belleville claimed she ordered electric socks for husband Floyd Scott because diabetes kept his feet uncomfortably cold.
Schuver claimed Floyd put them on and fell asleep, and they burned his leg so badly that his injuries resulted in death.
Global Vasion and Amazon retained Louis Berra of Lewis Rice in St. Louis, but he withdrew from Global Vasion’s defense last year.
He stated Global Vasion didn’t pay for services and wouldn’t pay.
Dugan gave Global Vasion 21 days to retain counsel, but Global Vasion didn’t retain counsel or pay any further attention to Dugan.
He granted default judgment and stated he’d determine damages after resolving Amazon’s part of the action.
This February, Schuver asked Amazon to designate a representative for deposition on 14 questions about China.
Berra agreed to answer ten and in April, he moved for protection from four.
Schuver opposed it, claiming enforcement of Scott’s judgment was impossible.
“Amazon has long been aware that by soliciting an ever larger number of sellers based in China, it has intentionally immunized an ever larger number of its products from product liability and personal injury claims,” Schuver wrote.
He claimed other nations require Amazon to disclose country of origin for all its products, but Amazon has successfully opposed disclosure in the U.S.
At Dugan’s hearing, Berra said discovery must be tethered to pleadings.
He said Amazon has hundreds of thousands of sellers in China.
He asked why Scott needed to know about recruiting and revenue in China and he added, “We can’t conceive of any reason.”
He said Amazon agreed to provide discovery for a single day and the search produced 660,000 entries.
He said he’d have to defend every product and contract at trial.
“I can’t imagine a situation that would be more confusing to a jury,” he said.
Schuver said he alleged Amazon goes out of its way to solicit manufacturers knowing they’re immune.
He said Amazon assured customers and promised to protect them from injury.
He said Amazon promised to remove products with problems and post warnings.
He said Amazon knew customers would have no recourse.
Dugan asked if he pleaded fraud and Schuver said amending the complaint might be a simple solution.
Dugan said he wasn’t qualified to say if legislators could do something, but he couldn’t do anything on law as it stands.
Schuver brought up recourse again and Dugan said, “That’s misrepresentation.”
Schuver said, “If this were nearly any other country we wouldn’t have these issues.”
Dugan said he’d issue an order, and he set a status conference in August.
He has set trial next May.