LIGHTERS CAN BE DANGEROUS TO CHILDREN

Disposable butane lighters can be dangerous products in the hands of children. Recently, the Pennsylvania Superior Court found that manufacturers who make disposable butane lighters without child-resistant safety features may be sued by people injured in fires started by children using those lighters.

There are three elements in such a products liability action: (1) the product must be defective; (2) the defect must be a substantial factor in causing the injury; and (3) the defect must exist at the time the product left the defendant's control. A defect can be shown in one of two ways. First, a plaintiff can prove a defect if the product or one of its components had a breakdown (a "manufacturing defect"). Second, a plaintiff can prove a case by demonstrating that the design of the product resulted in an unreasonably dangerous product (a "design defect"). The Pennsylvania Superior Court found that butane lighters without safety features may qualify as dangerously designed products.

The suit arose from an apartment fire started by a two-year-old who found an old disposable butane lighter in his mother's purse. The sole surviving family member claimed that the lighter was designed defectively. Because the lighter used by the child was manufactured before federal safety regulations were issued in 1994, it was not made or sold in violation of federal safety laws. Nevertheless, the court found that the remedies of the products liability law were available to the survivor.

The Pennsylvania court emphasized that designers, manufacturers, and distributors of disposable butane lighters have been well aware, since at least the early 1970s, that there was a potential serious hazard of catastrophic injury and death, particularly to the young, as a result of children using or playing with disposable butane lighters. For many years prior to the passage of the federal safety regulations, it was technologically, commercially, and economically feasible to manufacture and distribute a reasonably designed child-resistant lighter at only a nominal additional cost. While adult purchasers can be expected to avoid the dangers posed by lighters, a substantial risk of injury to children exists since children have a natural curiosity about fire and a desire to play with the lighters. Thus, the court found that the danger posed by the design was of the gravest kind and that the likelihood that the danger would occur, due to the nature of children and the product involved, was substantial and known to the manufacturers.

The principles of products liability law are complex and seek to balance the consumer's entitlement to safe products against the market's need for product innovation. Where sophisticated products cannot be made safer without considerable expense, or where it is less likely that the product will cause injuries, product liability may be denied by the courts. However, where it is cheap and easy to make a product much safer, the law expects manufacturers to do so.

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