## Facts

- Gloria Marie Hernandez, as next friend of her two-year-old son Ruben, sued Tokai Corporation and Scripto-Tokai Corporation, which manufactured and distributed disposable butane lighters.
- Ruben’s grandmother bought disposable butane lighters for use at her bar, and Hernandez sometimes took lighters from the bar for personal use.
- Hernandez and the grandmother knew it was dangerous for children to play with lighters and knew some lighters had child-resistant mechanisms, but the grandmother chose not to buy child-resistant lighters.
- Hernandez kept a lighter in her purse, stored on a top shelf in a closet at the grandparents’ home.
- Hernandez’s five-year-old daughter took the lighter from the purse and started a fire that severely burned Ruben.
- The lighter was intended for adult use and did not include a child-resistant mechanism.

## Issues

1. Under the Texas Products Liability Act of 1993, may a minor child’s representative maintain a design-defect claim when another child foreseeably misuses an adult-intended product, the misuse risk is obvious to the manufacturer and intended users, and a safer alternative design exists?
2. What must a plaintiff prove, beyond the availability of a safer alternative design, to establish a statutory design-defect claim for an adult-intended product lacking child-resistant features?

## Decision

- The Texas Supreme Court answered the certified question by holding that none of the listed conditions (adult-only intended use, obvious risk of child misuse, and existence of a safer alternative design) categorically precludes design-defect liability.
- The Court also held that those conditions, even together, do not establish liability; the plaintiff must still prove the product was unreasonably dangerous as designed under a risk–utility analysis.
- The Court stated that proof of a statutory “safer alternative design” is necessary but not sufficient for liability.
- The Court explained that whether a product is unreasonably dangerous requires balancing the product’s utility to its intended market against the risks associated with use by its intended users.
- After receiving the answer, the Fifth Circuit vacated the district court’s defense summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the Texas Supreme Court’s standards.

## Legal Principles

- Texas statutory design-defect liability requires proof of a “safer alternative design,” but that element alone does not establish a design defect.
- A plaintiff must also prove the product is unreasonably dangerous as designed using a risk–utility framework.
- Adult-only intended use does not, as a matter of law, bar a design-defect claim based on foreseeable child misuse.
- The obviousness of the danger and the foreseeability of misuse are factors in the unreasonably-dangerous inquiry, not categorical defenses.
- The “simple tool” characterization does not create automatic immunity from design-defect claims; liability depends on the statutory risk–utility evaluation.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court clarified that an adult-intended disposable lighter without child-resistant features is not insulated from design-defect claims merely because child misuse is obvious and a safer design exists; the plaintiff must prove both a statutory safer alternative design and that the design was unreasonably dangerous under risk–utility balancing, requiring further proceedings rather than judgment as a matter of law.


Hernandez v. Tokai Corp., 2 S.W.3d 251 (Tex. 1999)