Scott v. Amazon Ruling Puts Online Sodium Nitrite Sales Before A Jury

On February 19, 2026, the Washington Supreme Court unanimously ruled that families whose loved ones died after ingesting highly concentrated sodium nitrite purchased on Amazon can pursue negligence claims against the company in Scott v. Amazon.com Inc. The decision reversed a 2024 appellate ruling that had dismissed the case and held that a jury must decide whether Amazon’s conduct foreseeably contributed to these deaths.

The case involves four young people who obtained nearly pure, industrial grade sodium nitrite through Amazon’s marketplace. The families allege that these concentrations have no legitimate household use, can cause death within minutes, and were sold with inadequate warnings and cropped label images that obscured safety information, while Amazon’s own systems promoted the chemical alongside items like Tagamet, precision scales and an Amazon edition suicide manual.

A key part of the ruling is the court’s rejection of the idea that suicide automatically breaks the chain of causation and its recognition that Washington’s product liability statute allows claims based on intentional concealment, including allegations that Amazon deleted one-star reviews from parents warning that their children had used sodium nitrite purchased on the site to die. Scott also sits against the backdrop of Tyler’s Law, Washington’s 2025 statute limiting sales of sodium nitrite above 10 percent concentration to verified businesses and institutions, which helps define the standard of care for sellers going forward.

The Scott families are represented by a dedicated team of plaintiffs’ lawyers, including Carrie Goldberg and Naomi Leeds of C.A. Goldberg, PLLC, Seattle trial lawyer Corrie Yackulic, and former Washington Supreme Court justice Phil Talmadge. Their work has been central to bringing these issues before the state’s highest court.

Partner Don Fountain wrote an expert analysis of the Scott ruling for Law360, published April 8, 2026, discussing how the decision reshapes product liability and online marketplace accountability. Don is a board-certified civil trial lawyer with more than 37 years of experience and over 1 billion dollars in verdicts and settlements for injured victims and their families, including landmark product defect results.

For media inquiries, contact Celia Quitugua at cquitugua@clarkfountain.com.