Smith v. JC Penney Company, Inc.

This is a products liability case. The plaintiff was badly burned when a gasoline fire broke out in a service station and ignited an allegedly highly inflammable “fake fur” coat worn by plaintiff. A gasoline line on an automotive vehicle was being blown out with the air pressure hose used to inflate tires. So much force was applied to the gasoline line that it blew a spray of gasoline out of the vehicle’s opened tank and through an open door into the waiting room where there was a floor heater. Plaintiff was in the waiting room when the floor heater ignited the gasoline on the floor which in…