Products Liability Law Daily Wrap Up, SUPPLY CHAIN LIABILITY ISSUES—DRUGS—Ga. App.: Summary judgment affirmed in kratom death case, court rules repackager not a manufacturer, (May 19, 2026)

By Wendy Biddle, J.D.

A company that purchases, repackages, and relabels kratom products is a "product seller" rather than "manufacturer" under Georgia law, barring strict liability claims and finding insufficient evidence of constructive knowledge of fatal risks.

The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for Mood Rite, LLC and related defendants in a wrongful death action stemming from a 27-year-old man's fatal ingestion of kratom products, holding that the company's repackaging and relabeling activities did not make it a manufacturer subject to strict liability under Georgia law. The plaintiffs sued multiple defendants after their son died of acute mitragynine toxicity in April 2021 following ingestion of Mood Rite's kratom products (Taylor v. Mood Rite, LLC, No. A26A0725 (Ga. App. May 15, 2026)).

Background. Kratom is an herbal substance derived from leaves of the tropical evergreen tree Mitragyna speciosa, which contains the alkaloid mitragynine. Georgia law enacted in 2019 categorizes kratom as a controlled substance.

Mood Rite's business model involved purchasing kratom powder and capsules from Worldwide Manufacturing, LLC, then repackaging these products into bags and plastic containers bearing Mood Rite's own labeling. The company selected specific kratom strains but made no changes to the actual product received from Worldwide. Mood Rite did not harvest, dry, or otherwise process the mitragyna plant leaves used to create the powder or capsules.

The labeling designed and created by Mood Rite included warnings that the product was not FDA-approved and that the FDA considered kratom unfit for human consumption. However, the containers included no directions for use. Co-owners Jastinder Thind and Gurmeet Josan, a married couple, testified that Mood Rite had no actual knowledge of risks associated with ingesting kratom, including death risk.

The plaintiffs’ son, died of acute mitragynine toxicity after ingesting Mood Rite’s kratom product. They filed failure to warn claims based on strict liability and negligence. The trial court found that there was no evidence that Mood Rite, Magic Vapor, Thind, or Josan were manufacturers of the kratom and therefore could not be held strictly liable. The trial court granted summary judgment on the failure to warn claims. The parents appealed.

The Manufacturing question. The Court of Appeals first addressed whether Mood Rite qualified as a manufacturer under OCGA § 51-1-11, which imposes strict liability on manufacturers of defective products. The statute holds manufacturers liable "irrespective of privity" when property sold as new proves not merchantable and causes injury.

While Georgia law does not directly define "manufacturer," OCGA § 51-1-11.1 distinguishes between manufacturers and "product sellers." A product seller under the statute includes entities that "blend, package, label, market, or assemble pursuant to a manufacturer's plan" or are otherwise involved in placing products in the stream of commerce. Critically, the statute provides that "a product seller is not a manufacturer" for purposes of strict liability actions.

The parents argued that Mood Rite's assembly, packaging, and labeling activities created a jury question about whether the company had sufficient "input" to be "actively involved" in the product's conception, design, or specification. The court disagreed, noting that Georgia law requires strict construction of the manufacturing definition to apply only to actual manufacturers or designers.

Examining the undisputed facts, the court found that Mood Rite purchased finished kratom products and merely repackaged them under its own brand name. The company was not involved in harvesting or processing the plant material, and while it designed its own labeling, it had no input into designing, manufacturing, or assembling the actual kratom product itself.

The court rejected what it characterized as an "ostensible manufacturer" argument, citing precedent holding that under Georgia's 1987 tort reform act, an entity that merely labels a product as its own prior to sale, without input into its making through design, manufacture, or assembly, remains a product seller rather than a manufacturer.

Constructive knowledge. The court next examined whether the trial court properly granted summary judgment on the parents' negligent failure to warn claim. Under Georgia law, sellers must warn consumers of dangers of which they have actual or constructive knowledge. While Thind testified Mood Rite lacked actual knowledge, the parents argued the record established constructive knowledge.

The parents pointed to various sources: a 2014 FDA alert citing serious toxicity concerns; a 2020 DEA fact sheet indicating kratom causes addiction; clinical toxicology journal articles reporting 1,807 poison control calls from 2011-2017; a New England Journal of Medicine letter asserting kratom as a cause in 91 of 152 deaths; news articles about specific deaths; and a 2019 FDA alert warning of serious health risks including death.

The parents also cited customer complaints about taste, smell, color, sweating, palpitations, and nausea, plus potency level discrepancies between shipments. They argued their son's death itself evidenced that fatal risks were known in the forensic medical community.

The appeals court affirmed the grant of summary judgment, finding this evidence insufficient to create a genuine factual dispute about constructive knowledge. The court noted that Georgia law permits establishing constructive knowledge through scientific studies published before the injury or showing the danger was universally recognized by experts in the field prior to injury.

Applying the standard that sellers must warn if they have knowledge or "by the application of reasonable, developed human skill and foresight should have knowledge of the danger," the court found the evidence inadequate. Reported deaths appeared localized and not widely publicized such that Mood Rite should have been aware through reasonable diligence. Customer complaints and potency variations did not indicate fatal risk. The 2020 DEA fact sheet mentioned serious conditions but not death specifically.

Significantly, the court noted that the New England Journal article itself was not in the record; only an abstract requiring paid access appeared. Links to the 2019 FDA bulletin and 2017 death article led to error messages. The court emphasized its inability to consider documents not properly admitted in the record below, stating it could not rely on hyperlinks to documents not in evidence and was not required to search the record on the appellant's behalf.

Finally, the court affirmed summary judgment for Magic Vapor, finding the claims against that entity identical to those against Mood Rite and requiring no separate analysis of the corporate relationships.

The case is No. A26A0725.

Judge: Davis, J.

Attorneys: Lance A. Cooper (The Cooper Firm) for James Taylor. Christopher J. Daniel (Stockman O'Connor PLLC) for Mood Rite, LLC.

Companies: Mood Rite, LLC; Magic Vapor

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