## Facts

- Laura Hollister was injured in November 1995 while cooking on an electric stove when the tail of her 100% rayon button-down shirt contacted a hot burner, ignited, and caused severe third-degree burns over more than half her body.
- The shirt was purchased at a Dayton Hudson department store roughly six years before the incident.
- Hollister sued Dayton Hudson alleging (1) defective design due to extreme flammability and (2) failure to warn of that flammability.
- Hollister’s textile expert tested identical fabric and reported that it ignited immediately and burned completely within six seconds; most comparison fabrics did not ignite, and the fastest comparator burned in about four seconds.
- Dayton Hudson’s expert tested remnants of the shirt and concluded it complied with the federal clothing flammability standard, 16 C.F.R. § 1610.
- Hollister did not present evidence identifying a specific feasible alternative fabric design or treatment that would have reduced the flammability risk.
- Hollister testified that she would not have worn the shirt while cooking if she had known it was highly flammable.

## Issues

1. Whether, under Michigan’s risk–utility approach, Hollister produced sufficient evidence of a design defect to survive summary judgment on negligence and implied-warranty theories based on defective design.
2. Whether Hollister produced sufficient evidence that the shirt was defective for lack of an adequate warning, supporting a breach of implied warranty of merchantability claim.
3. Whether the risk of clothing ignition was so open and obvious, or federal flammability compliance so conclusive, that no duty to warn could exist as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Dayton Hudson on the design-defect theory.
- The court held Hollister failed to establish a prima facie design-defect case under Michigan law because she did not identify a safer, feasible alternative design.
- The Sixth Circuit reversed summary judgment on the implied-warranty failure-to-warn theory.
- The court held a reasonable jury could find the shirt unmerchantable for lack of a warning about unusually rapid ignition and burning, even if some general ignition risk is commonly known.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings limited to the implied-warranty failure-to-warn claim.

## Legal Principles

- Under Michigan’s risk–utility framework for design defect, evidence of danger alone generally does not suffice; plaintiffs ordinarily must show a practical, feasible alternative design that would have reduced foreseeable risk without undue loss of utility.
- Failure-to-warn liability is analytically distinct from design defect; a product may be otherwise acceptably designed yet still be defective if it lacks adequate warnings about non-obvious dangers associated with foreseeable use.
- “Open and obvious” operates at the level of the specific risk; common knowledge that clothing can burn does not necessarily make obvious an unusual propensity to ignite and burn with exceptional speed.
- Compliance with federal safety standards is relevant evidence but not dispositive of state-law defectiveness or the adequacy/necessity of warnings.
- A plaintiff’s testimony that an adequate warning would have changed her conduct can be sufficient to create a jury question on causation for a warning-defect claim.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit required a feasible alternative design to proceed on a Michigan design-defect theory but allowed an implied-warranty failure-to-warn claim to go to a jury where evidence supported an unusually severe, not-necessarily-obvious flammability risk and where regulatory compliance did not conclusively negate the need for a warning.


Hollister v. Dayton Hudson Corp., 201 F.3d 731 (6th Cir. 2000)