## Facts

- The Town of Bridport owned an old town hall; the second floor was leased to a Masonic Lodge.
- A restoration committee undertook renovations using grants, donations, and volunteer labor.
- Volunteer Robert Grant bought a gallon of “gum turps” and a gallon of boiled linseed oil manufactured by Sterling Clark Lurton Corp. to refinish the second-floor wood floor.
- Grant scanned the gum turps label for application instructions but did not thoroughly read it; another volunteer, Gary Barkley, did not read or look at the containers.
- The gum turps label included a prominent front-panel flammability warning and a back-panel instruction to dispose of oily rags safely to avoid spontaneous combustion.
- The linseed oil label directed users to read a back-panel caution warning that oily cloths were subject to spontaneous combustion and providing handling and disposal instructions.
- Grant and Barkley mixed the products roughly 50/50, applied the mixture, and used sawdust (and possibly a mop) to absorb excess.
- They left a bucket of wet oily sawdust, the containers, and possibly a used mop in the building overnight.
- The next day, the town hall burned; investigation attributed the fire to spontaneous combustion of oily waste associated with the products.
- The Town sued in products liability for failure to warn, alleging the warnings did not adequately alert users to the spontaneous-combustion risk.

## Issues

1. In a failure-to-warn products liability claim, can an allegedly inadequate warning be a proximate cause of injury where users did not read or carefully read the warning?
2. Were the content and conspicuousness of the warnings so clearly adequate that the manufacturer was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law?

## Decision

- The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for the manufacturer.
- The Court held that the warnings were adequate as a matter of law to alert a reasonable consumer to the risk of spontaneous combustion.
- Because the warnings were legally sufficient and the Town produced no evidence supporting inadequacy, the Town could not establish proximate cause on a failure-to-warn theory.
- Although warning adequacy is usually for the jury, the record made adequacy sufficiently clear to resolve on summary judgment.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is proper when no genuine dispute of material fact exists and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law; the nonmovant receives all reasonable inferences supported by evidence.
- In a products liability failure-to-warn claim, the warning must be conspicuous enough to attract a reasonably prudent user’s attention and sufficiently inform of the relevant danger so the product is not unreasonably dangerous.
- Warning adequacy is generally a jury question, but a court may decide adequacy as a matter of law when the warning’s sufficiency is apparent on the record.
- If the plaintiff cannot produce evidence that the warning’s content or conspicuousness was inadequate, the failure-to-warn claim fails, including for lack of proximate cause.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that the manufacturer’s labels expressly warned of spontaneous combustion and gave disposal instructions in a manner adequate to alert a reasonable consumer; with no evidentiary basis to show inadequacy or causation, the Town’s failure-to-warn claim could not reach a jury, and summary judgment was affirmed.


Town of Bridport v. Sterling Clark Lurton Corp., 166 Vt. 304, 693 A.2d 701 (1997)