Moran vs. Faberge (1975)

At a slumber party held at the home of Louis Grigsby, RandiWilliams poured Faberge “Tigress” cologne into a burning candle inorder to make it a “scented” candle. The perfume, composed of 82%alcohol, was highly flammable and caught fire. The resulting flamescaused severe burns to the neck and torso of Randi’s friend NancyMoran. The Moran family sued the Williams family and the Grigsbyfamily, and both were found not guilty. The Williams family alsosued the Faberge company, on the basis of the fact that there wasno warning on the product indicating that it was highly flammable,even though the manufacturer knew that it was highly flammable. Thetrial court found Faberge liable for $30000 in damages. Fabergeappealed.

The appeals court noted that manufacturers (as of 1975) had aduty to “produce a safe product, with appropriate warnings andinstruction when necessary”. Thinking in terms of the Hand rule, itnoted that printing a warning on a label is indeed a very cheapprecaution, but that there also must be some identifiable benefitto printing the warning for failure to print a warning to becomefailure to meet a duty.

The appeals court then ruled against Faberge.

QUESTION:

1. Did Faberge fail in its standard of care according to a Handrule? (That is, if there had been a warning of flammability on theproduct, would the benefit to society in the form of fewer lossesdue to accidents outweigh the cost of printing the warning?) Or isthe ruling wrong, because it is too costly to ask companies toforesee and try to safeguard or warn against every bizarre type ofproduct use?