Bic wins civil suit resulting from fire > Disposable lighter blamed for blaze

PORTLAND — Bic Corp. has won a lawsuit in which a Topsham woman contended the design of the company’s disposable lighter led to a fire in which a 2-year-old boy and two younger siblings died.

The Superior Court jury rendered its verdict at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, finding that the lighter indeed started the fire in November 1984 but that the company’s product was not “unreasonably dangerous.”

Pamela Redman of Topsham, whose children died in the fire, claimed the company was negligent for failing to produce a child-resistant lighter. She was seeking unspecified damages.

Bic issued a statement from its Milford, Conn., headquarters noting that there have been more than 50 similar court decisions in favor of the company since 1988.

“This case arose out of a terrible tragedy, in which there was evidence of parental negligence and lack of supervision,” said Linda Kwong, company spokeswoman.

Redman’s attorney, Frederick Swartz, argued that lighters available at the time of the fire were too easy for a child to use, and that Bic should have produced a child-resistant product.

He didn’t return a phone call Thursday to his Boston office.

Bic’s lawyer, Chester Janiak, said Bic’s lighters were as safe as any on the market in 1984 and that it took seven years to come up with a child-resistant version.

He also contended that Redmond’s account of how her son got the lighter didn’t add up, and he suggested that the children weren’t being properly supervised.

Redmond said she left her 2-year-old son in his high-chair while she went upstairs to tend 11-month-old twins. While she was upstairs, she said, the boy reached a disposable lighter on top of the refrigerator and started a fire on the living room couch.

The mother escaped the fire, but the boy and the twins died.

On its own, Bic began developing a more child-resistant lighter the next year. But it took seven years to develop and put on the market, and then it didn’t sell well, Janiak said.

“Consumers using more than 200 million Bic lighters each year know Bic lighters are safe. Judges and juries have agreed repeatedly over the past five years that Bic lighters are safe,” the company said.