Plaintiff appeals as of right from the summary disposition granted to Harper Grace Hospitals (Harper) pursuant to MCR 2.116(0(10); National Wholesale Drug Company (National), Handel Laboratories, Inc. (Handel), Bergen-Brunswig Drug Company, and Frank W. Kerr Chemical Company (Kerr), pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(7); and Drake-Willock International, Ltd (Drake), Mc-Neilab, and Baxter Health Care (Baxter), pursuant to MCR.2116(C)(10). We affirm.
Plaintiff was employed by defendant Harper as a dialysis technician between the years 1978 and 1984. In the course of her employment, she was required to use a formaldehyde solution to clean the dialysis machines on a daily basis. Plaintiff contends that she sustained serious injuries as a *140 result of her exposure to formaldehyde. Defendants Drake, McNeilab, and Baxter provided Harper with dialysis machines. Defendants Bergen, Handel, Kerr and National supplied Harper with formaldehyde.
Plaintiff argues that the trial court erred in granting summary disposition to Harper with respect to her intentional tort claim. She asserts that there were material questions of fact regarding whether Harper had actual knowledge that injuries would occur as a result of formaldehyde exposure. We disagree.
The exclusive remedy provision of the Worker’s Disability Compensation Act and the intentional tort exception provide:
The right to the recovery of benefits as provided in this act shall be the employee’s exclusive remedy against the employer for a personal injury or occupational disease. The only exception to this exclusive remedy is an intentional tort. An intentional tort shall exist only when an employee is injured as a result of a deliberate act of the employer and the employer speciñcally intended an injury. An employer shall be deemed to have intended to injure if the employer had actual knowledge that an injury was certain to occur and willfully disregarded that knowledge. The issue of whether an act was an intentional tort shall be a question of law for the court. This subsection shall not enlarge or reduce rights under law. [MCL 418.131(1); MSA 17.237(131X1). Emphasis added.]
This amendment became effective May 14, 1987, and it has retroactive application.
Smith v Mirror Lite Co,
The Court’s decision in
Schefsky v Evening
*141
News Ass’n,
As in Schefsky, in this matter there is no evidence showing that Harper intended to injure plaintiff. Furthermore, a doctor in charge of Harper’s nephrology department stated that he did not know of any relationship between the use of formaldehyde and respiratory problems. Plaintiff’s allegations, at most, show negligence on Harper’s part. Negligence does not qualify plaintiff for the intentional tort exception to the wdca, and, thus, the wdca provides plaintiff’s exclusive remedy. Accordingly, the trial court correctly granted summary disposition for defendant Harper.
Plaintiff next argues that the trial court erred in granting summary disposition for the formaldehyde suppliers, Bergen, Handel, Kerr, and Na *142 tional, on the basis of a statute of limitations violation. We conclude that the trial court correctly granted summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(7). In July 1985, plaintiff learned that her injury may have been caused by formaldehyde exposure. Her initial complaint was filed on August 28, 1987. The amended complaint naming Bergen, Handel, Kerr, and National as defendants was filed on March 2, 1989. While acknowledging that the three-year period of limitation had passed before the formaldehyde suppliers were sued, plaintiff argues that the statute of limitations should not have begun to run until plaintiff discovered, or through the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the identity of the parties.
Plaintiff’s argument manifests a misunderstanding of the discovery rule. That rule states "that the period of limitation does not begin to run until the plaintiff discovers, or through the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, that he had a possible cause of action.”
Thomas v Process Equipment Corp,
Like the plaintiffs in
Thomas,
plaintiff in this case is using this rule in a context in which it was not designed to apply, i.e., to discover the identity of the parties. Regardless of when plaintiff discovered the identity of the formaldehyde suppliers,
*143
her cause of action accrued in July 1985, and her March 2, 1989, complaint was barred by the statute of limitations. For the reasons stated by this Court in
Thomas, supra,
we decline to accept plaintiffs invitation to adopt the holding in
Yustick v Eli Lilly & Co,
With regard to defendants Drake, McNeilab, and Baxter, the manufacturers of dialysis machines, plaintiff argues that the court erred in granting summary disposition for them on the basis that they owed no duty to warn of the dangers associated with formaldehyde exposure.
This motion was characterized by the trial court as being decided pursuant to MCR 2.116(0(10), yet it was decided on the basis that there was no claim stated. MCR 2.116(C)(8). If summary disposition is granted under one subpart of the court rule when judgment is appropriate under another subpart, the defect is not fatal and does not preclude appellate review if the record otherwise permits it.
Ellsworth v Highland Lakes Development Associates,
A motion under MCR 2.116(C)(8) tests the legal sufficiency of a claim by the pleadings alone. All factual allegations in support of the claim are accepted as true, as well as any reasonable inferences or conclusions that can be drawn from the facts.
Marcelletti v Bathani,
Plaintiff argues that, because of a prior appeal in this matter, the doctrine of law of the case precludes defendants Drake, McNeilab, and Baxter from relitigating the issue of duty to warn. Unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, decided December 11, 1989 (Docket No. 107113). Plaintiff asserts that this Court’s prior decision in Docket No. 107113 held that these manufacturers had a duty to warn of the dangers of formaldehyde use if such use was foreseeable. However, plaintiff misunderstands the earlier decision of this Court. In Docket No. 107113, this Court reversed the trial court’s grant of summary disposition and remanded because there were factual questions with regard to whether use of formaldehyde as a cleaning agent was foreseeable. When this Court reverses a case and remands it for a trial because a material issue of fact exists, the law of the case doctrine does not apply because the first appeal was not decided on the merits.
Borkus v Michigan Nat’l Bank,
Alternatively, plaintiff argues that summary disposition for the dialysis machine manufacturers was improper.
Plaintiff relies on
Comstock v General Motors Corp,
[T]he ultimate manufacturer is liable for negli *145 gence in manufacture or inspection of parts of an automobile directly related to its safe operation even if the defective part was supplied by others and the injured party was not in privity of contract. [Id. at 174.]
Plaintiff claims that the dialysis machine manufacturers had a duty to warn of the dangers associated with formaldehyde use because defendants Drake and McNeilab recommended formaldehyde to clean their machines and defendant Baxter anticipated its use.
We conclude that Comstock is distinguishable from the instant case and that plaintiff’s reliance on that case is misplaced. In this case, defendants Drake, McNeilab, and Baxter did not supply the formaldehyde that allegedly caused plaintiffs injury. Furthermore, formaldehyde was not related directly to the safe operation of defendants’ dialysis machines. Plaintiff did not allege that the machines themselves were dangerous or defective; rather, plaintiff alleged that her use of formaldehyde caused her injuries.
In granting the summary disposition, the trial court determined that defendant dialysis machine manufacturers owed no duty to warn because they merely supplied the dialysis machines cleaned by plaintiff. The court held that defendant manufacturers did not have a duty to provide warnings for dangerous conditions present in other products. We agree. The law does not impose upon manufacturers a duty to warn of the hazards of using products manufactured by someone else.
Spaulding v Lesco Int'l Corp,
Furthermore, we hold that defendant manufacturers did not owe any duty to warn on the basis that they had sold this equipment to a sophisticated purchaser and learned intermediary. Defendant manufacturers raised these issues below, but the trial court chose not to address them because it found that the manufacturers were entitled to summary disposition simply on the basis that they had no duty to warn about others’ products. Although the trial court did not base its determination on these grounds, "this Court may properly review an issue if the question is one of law and the facts necessary for its resolution have been presented.”
Spruytte v Owens,
This state first recognized the sophisticated user doctrine in
Antcliff v State Employees Credit Union,
There are countless skilled operations such as the rigging of scaffolding, which involve otherwise nondangerous products in potentially dangerous situations. A manufacturer of such a product should be able to presume mastery of the basic operation. The more so when, as here, the manufacturer affirmatively and successfully limits the market of its product to professionals. In such a case, the manufacturer should not be burdened with the often difficult task of providing instructions on how to properly perform the basic operation. [Emphasis added.]
*147
The holding in
Antcliff
was limited to the facts of that case and that defendant; however, the sophisticated user defense has been further recognized in Michigan. For instance, in
Ross v Jaybird Automation, Inc,
A seller or manufacturer should be able to presume mastery of basic operations by experts or skilled professionals in an industry, and should not owe a duty to warn or instruct such persons on how to perform basic operations in their industry.
In
Aetna Casualty & Surety Co v Ralph Wilson Plastics Co,
Those with a legal obligation to be informed concerning the hazards of materials used in manufacturing processes must be relied upon, as sophisticated users, to fulfill their legal obligations, thereby absolving manufacturers in some circumstances of the duty to warn the users of chemical products, where such use is in the course of employment for a sophisticated bulk user. Any other rule would mean that " '[m]odern life would be intolerable unless one were permitted to rely to a certain extent on others doing what they normally do, particularly if it is their duty to do so.’ ” [Citations omitted.]
Further, in
Jodway v Kennametal, Inc,
In the instant case, the dialysis machines were sold to sophisticated buyers. Indeed, dialysis ma *148 chines are prescription devices, available for purchase by physicians only. 21 CFR 801.109(b)(1). Accordingly, the rationale behind the sophisticated user doctrine and the cases cited herein applies in this case. Defendant manufacturers could assume that the physicians purchasing their dialysis machines would have a mastery of the basic operation of the equipment and would adequately instruct their employees.
Similarly, application of the learned intermediary rule lends further support for the trial court’s decision. In
Smith v E R Squibb & Sons, Inc,
A manufacturer of a prescription drug has a legal duty to warn the medical profession, not the patient, of any risks inherent in the use of the drug which the manufacturer knows or should know to exist.
This Court recognized the rule in
Mowery v Crittenton Hosp,
To expect the average citizen to know if he or she should take the drug or when to stop taking it, or to understand the technical language so often necessary to explain the dangers of the drug, is unreasonable. This is the basis for the "learned intermediary” rule adopted by a majority of jurisdictions in cases involving therapeutic, diagnostic or curative drugs.
*149 Accordingly, in the absence of a clear legal duty imposed on defendant manufacturers to directly warn plaintiffs, plaintiffs have failed to state a claim upon which they may recover. [Id. at 720-721.]
We now hold that the reasoning and policy behind the learned intermediary rule applies not only to prescription drugs, but also to prescription devices such as dialysis machines. Under the learned intermediary rule, the hospital or physician was the proper recipient of necessary information or warnings, not plaintiff. As in Mowery, defendant manufacturers had no duty to warn plaintiff in this case because of the learned intermediary rule.
Finally, we note that plaintiff wrongly asserts that the trial court only granted partial summary disposition to these defendants. Plaintiff admitted in response to defendants’ interrogatories that her only theory against defendant manufacturers was their alleged failure to warn of the dangers posed by the inhalation of formaldehyde. The trial court fully addressed this issue and granted summary disposition that encompassed all plaintiff’s claims against these defendants.
In summary, the manufacturers of the dialysis machines, Drake, McNeilab, and Baxter, have no duty to warn plaintiff of the dangers of formaldehyde because (1) their dialysis machines were not dangerous or defective, (2) the purchaser of the product was a sophisticated user that could be relied upon to give such warnings, and (3) this product is securable only by prescription from a physician, and thus, the learned intermediary rule pertains.
We affirm.