Jonathan Stempel
Feb 19 (Reuters) – Amazon must face a lawsuit from a family who killed a loved one by suicide after consuming sodium nitrite purchased from an outside supplier on Amazon’s website, the Washington Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday.
All nine judges rejected an intermediate appeals court ruling that families could not sue Amazon for negligence because suicide was a substitute cause of their relative’s death.
Judge G. Helen Whitener wrote that Amazon owed its customers a duty of reasonable care to avoid exposing them to “harm from the foreseeable conduct of a third party.”
She said the jury should decide whether the suicide was a foreseeable result of the Seattle-based retailer’s alleged failure to meet that obligation.
Amazon upholds safety commitments
Twenty-eight families have filed a lawsuit alleging that Amazon knew for years about the link between sodium nitrite and suicide but still allowed unrestricted sales of the product along with other products that may aid suicide. They collectively refer to these products as “suicide kits.”
The families are seeking unspecified damages from Amazon under Washington state product liability law for the deaths of their relatives.
Thursday’s decision covers appeals from four families who said they lost relatives aged 17 to 27 who consumed 98% or 99.6% pure sodium nitrite in 2020 and 2021.
Amazon said it disagrees with the decision and is committed to protecting the safety of all customers. It expresses its condolences to the families affected by the suicide.
Sodium nitrite is used as a food preservative
The case is one of many seeking to hold online sales platforms such as Amazon responsible for products sold by third-party vendors.
“Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world and should not be profiting from a product that they know people are using to harm themselves,” Kelly Goldberg, an attorney for the families, said in an interview.
Sodium nitrite is a legal chemical commonly used as a preservative in food products such as meat and fish. It is also used in research laboratories and in the treatment of cyanide poisoning.
Amazon said in a statement that high-concentration sodium nitrite “is not suitable for direct consumption and, unfortunately, like many products, it has the potential for abuse.”
Amazon said it now prohibits the sale of sodium nitrite with a purity greater than 10%.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
