## Facts

- Six-year-old Brittany Carter suffered severe burns when her five-year-old brother, Jonas, accidentally ignited her dress using a J-26 model BIC disposable lighter.
- Brittany’s mother sued the manufacturer, alleging the lighter had both design and manufacturing defects that were producing causes of the fire and injuries.
- A jury found both a design defect and a manufacturing defect and awarded actual and exemplary damages.
- In earlier appellate proceedings, the design-defect theory was held preempted by federal child-resistant lighter regulation, leaving the manufacturing-defect theory as the remaining basis for liability.
- The manufacturing-defect theory asserted the lighter deviated from manufacturing specifications in two child-resistance components related to the force required to operate the lighter.
- Evidence showed that even when manufactured to specifications and compliant with federal standards, the lighter could still be operable by a small percentage of children.
- Jonas was described as cognitively delayed, but there was no evidence he had physical or strength limitations.

## Issues

1. Whether the manufacturing-defect claim was preempted by federal law governing child-resistant lighters.
2. Whether there was legally sufficient evidence that the asserted manufacturing deviations were a producing cause of Brittany’s injuries.

## Decision

- The court proceeded on the premise that the manufacturing-defect claim was not preempted as an alternative, non-design-based theory of liability.
- The court assumed there was evidence the lighter deviated from manufacturing specifications.
- The court held there was no legally sufficient evidence that the deviation, rather than the lighter’s compliant design characteristics and Jonas’s abilities, caused Jonas to be able to operate the lighter.
- The court reversed the judgment for Carter and rendered a take-nothing judgment for BIC.

## Legal Principles

- A manufacturing defect requires proof that the product deviated from specifications or planned output in a manner rendering it unreasonably dangerous.
- A plaintiff must prove both (1) a deviation from specifications and (2) that the deviation was a producing cause of the injury.
- Producing cause requires evidence the defect was a substantial factor in bringing about the injury and that the injury would not have occurred without it.
- Proof that a product deviated from specifications, combined with proof of an accident, is insufficient without evidence connecting the specific deviation to the injury; a causal inference resting on speculation is legally insufficient.

## Conclusion

Because the evidence did not link the lighter’s alleged force-related deviations from specifications to Jonas’s ability to ignite the lighter, the plaintiff failed to prove producing cause, requiring judgment as a matter of law for the manufacturer.


Bic Pen Corp. v. Carter, 346 S.W.3d 533 (Tex. 2011)