## Facts

- Marilyn Smith, through a guardian ad litem, sued after suffering severe burns when a gasoline fire at a service station ignited her faux-fur coat.
- Service-station personnel used an air-pressure hose to blow out a vehicle’s gasoline line, causing gasoline to spray from an open tank into the waiting room.
- Gasoline on the floor was ignited by a floor heater, and the resulting fire ignited Smith’s coat.
- Smith bought the coat from J.C. Penney in November 1970; Penney had purchased the coat from Roseda Corporation in mid-1970.
- Smith alleged the coat was defectively and dangerously flammable and that the fabric was a “Borg” fabric made or supplied by The Bunker-Ramo Corporation.
- Evidence included tags referencing “Borg” fabric and manufacturing records/testimony linking the coat’s style identifiers to Roseda’s use of Borg fabric supplied by Bunker-Ramo.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient for a jury to find that Bunker-Ramo manufactured or supplied the specific fabric used in Smith’s coat.
2. Whether the service-station defendants were entitled to a special jury instruction that, if other actors’ conduct was a “predominant” cause making the station’s conduct “insignificant,” the station’s conduct could not be a substantial factor in causing Smith’s injuries.

## Decision

- The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the judgment entered on a $600,000 jury verdict against the service-station defendants and Bunker-Ramo.
- The court held that circumstantial evidence (tags, trade name identification, and manufacturer records/testimony) permitted a reasonable inference that Bunker-Ramo supplied the fabric.
- The court held the trial court did not err in refusing the service station’s proposed “predominant cause/insignificant factor” instruction because standard substantial-factor causation instructions were adequate and the requested refinement risked confusion.

## Legal Principles

- In products-liability litigation, product/component identification may be proven by circumstantial evidence, including labeling, trade names, and supplier/manufacturer records from the chain of distribution.
- On review of evidentiary sufficiency supporting a verdict, the question is whether the proof allows a reasonable jury to draw the necessary inferences, not whether direct proof of the specific item (e.g., a particular batch of material) is produced.
- Under Oregon tort law, causation in cases with multiple contributing causes is governed by the substantial-factor test; courts need not add instructions contrasting “predominant” causes with “insignificant” contributions when standard causation instructions correctly state the law.
- A defendant is not entitled to a causation instruction that implies comparative weighing of causal responsibility beyond determining whether the defendant’s conduct was a substantial factor in producing the harm.

## Conclusion

The court sustained liability findings against a component-fabric supplier based on circumstantial identification evidence and reaffirmed that ordinary substantial-factor instructions sufficiently guide juries on causation where multiple actors may have contributed to the plaintiff’s injury.


Smith v. J.C. Penney Co., 269 Or. 643, 525 P.2d 1299 (1974)