Tennessee Products Liability Act did not apply to foreign plaintiffs’ claim.

The Tennessee Products Liability Act (“TPLA”) does not apply extraterritorially, and therefore dismissal of a case where the plaintiffs’ injuries occurred in the Dominican Republic was affirmed.

In Renel v. Drexel Chemical Company, No. W2023-01693-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. June 6, 2025), the plaintiffs worked in the sugar cane industry. The plaintiffs filed suit against the defendant chemical company, claiming they were injured by chemicals produced and sold by the defendant, which was a Tennessee company located in Tennessee.

The trial court granted the defendant company’s motion to dismiss, ruling that “the TPLA does not have extraterritorial application,” and that “even if a case were to proceed in Tennessee, the applicable law would be the law of the Dominican Republic.” The Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal.

In their appellate briefs, both the plaintiff and the defendant focused on the “two-step process outlined by the United States Supreme Court in RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community” to analyze the extraterritoriality issue. Under that framework, a court considering the application of a statute outside its jurisdiction first asks “whether the presumption against extraterritoriality has been rebutted—that is, whether the statute gives a clear, affirmative indication that it applies extraterritorially.” If the statute does not contain such language, the second step is to “determine whether the case involves a domestic application of the statute,” which is done by looking at whether the “conduct relevant to the statute’s focus occurred in the United States.” (quoting RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. Eur. Cmty., 579 U.S. 325 (2016)).

The plaintiffs conceded that the TPLA did not contain a “clear, affirmative indication that it applies extraterritorially.” The plaintiffs argued, however, that the trial court had misapplied the second step of the analysis because the trial court focused only on the TPLA’s role in protecting the ordinary consumer, ignoring the statute’s focus on imposing responsibility on manufacturers and sellers of products. In affirming dismissal, the Court of Appeals ruled that the two-step analysis was not necessary in the first place.

The Court wrote that the federal analysis did not apply to state statutes. Instead, it turned to an unpublished Tennessee case to reason that the only relevant question was whether the statute at issue purported to apply extraterritorially. The Court wrote:

Thus, the pivotal question in this case, applying Tennessee law, is whether the statute itself, the Tennessee Products Liability Act, purports to apply extraterritorially. This is essentially the same question the trial court answered when applying step one of the RJR Nabisco analysis, which the trial court framed as follows: “First, the Court asks whether the presumption against application has been rebutted. That is, does the statute at issue contain a clear affirmative indication that it applies extraterritorially.” The trial court answered this question in the negative, finding that “[t]he TPLA does not contain a clear, affirmative indication that it applies extraterritorially.” Plaintiffs have not constructed any argument to the contrary on appeal. They do not argue that the TPLA purports to apply extraterritorially. The only issue they raised on appeal was “[w]hether the trial court erred in finding that the [TPLA] does not have extraterritorial application,” due to a flawed analysis of the second step of the RJR Nabisco test regarding the statute’s focus and related conduct. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the trial court’s use of the two-step federal framework was harmless error, and Plaintiffs’ limited argument on appeal regarding the second step of the analysis is irrelevant. Having rejected the narrow argument presented on appeal, we affirm the trial court’s holding that “the TPLA does not have extraterritorial application.”

(internal citations omitted). Dismissal was therefore affirmed.

Judge Stafford wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing that the two-step framework should be used. He further wrote that the plaintiffs’ had mis-framed their issue, and that the real question was “not whether the TPLA can be applied extraterritorially, but whether there is a basis in the record for a domestic application of the TPLA.”

This opinion was released nine months after oral arguments.

 

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