Discussing Spontaneous Human Combustion with a Top Product Liability Lawyer

I have always had a fascination with spontaneous human combustion. You know, the urban legend about the man sitting in his easy chair, who for no apparent reason blows up into flames, and all that's left of him are his stubby legs and ashes. I don't know if spontaneous human combustion happens?science seems to be doubtful of it?but if you've ever been around or moved dead bodies, you know that humans are filled with some nasty gases that smell like sour gasoline.

With this interest in human fireballs, my eye was drawn to a recent ad in The New York Law Journal with the bold heading "Clothing Fires"; underneath was the text, "Adult garment regulations were last updated in 1953, and children's regulations suffer other deficiencies. Call us on your product cases."

I looked into the lawyer, Mike Weinberger, who ran the ad, and it turns out he's one of the top products-liability lawyers in New York. Weinberger wrote the seminal book on the subject, New York Products Liability, which is considered the standard reference text in that field. His tome is quoted in scores of court motions and briefs; other lawyers use Weinberger's book to prove their cases. This, I figured, was a man who might know about spontaneous human combustion.

"No, I've never heard of that happening," said Weinberger when I asked him about combustion cases. He probably thought me some ranting fool, but since he had even scarier stories to tell he was willing to wait out my inanities.

The 48-year-old Weinberger lives in Chelsea and heads his own products-liability law firm. A native New Yorker, he is a no-nonsense guy who feels he is fighting the good fight in taking on lax manufacturers. His clients, the burn victims, agree.

Weinberger laid out for me in detail how all of us walk around in clothing that may be highly flammable, how we all may be one dropped cigarette away from becoming screaming balls of flame. "The clothing and textile industry has done a very good job at stifling any progress in the improvement of the flammability of general apparel?basically your day in and day out clothing that you wear. Loose clothing like a robe you may wear around the house and then near an oven may be a highly flammable material. You would think loose clothing worn around the house or for cooking would be under stricter regulations. That is common sense, right? They're not, and the industry has done a masterful job at keeping the regulations the same for almost 50 years."

He went on to tell me that before 1953 there were no regulations on the flammability of clothing. The history of how the '53 regs came into being is rooted in the late 1940s, when quite a few young boys died in fires while wearing a certain brand of cowboy pants. The pants were highly flammable and a dropped match was all that was needed to light them up. As the death toll mounted, a national outcry ensued, and the government demanded that the clothing and textile industry come up with some kind of minimum regulations.

"The federal regulation they come up with?which is still in place?is to take a small glass jar with small holes?they keep the holes small so there is less oxygen, and as you know, oxygen is fuel for a fire?and then they take a small swatch of the material and hold it at a 45-degree angle. Now fire does not operate at a 45-degree angle, but they take the swatch and then they take a tiny test flame, which is less than half that of a match head, and they put the flame to the edge of the fabric for one second. That's it. Only a second. Those are the federal regulations that the industry came up with in 1953 and they haven't changed since. Now, if you hold the flame to the fabric for a second and a half and it burns up?it doesn't matter. They can still sell the fabric."

Weinberger told me about a current case he is working on in which a woman wearing Avon clothing dropped a cigarette lighter on her clothes, igniting them, and suffered burns over 50 percent of her body. The woman was lucky to survive?she suffered severe infections, received many skin grafts and almost lost her legs.

"The Avon case is horrific. She may still lose her legs. This is a bad case?I'm going for $20 million on it. I'm not like some lawyers that make up a number out of the air. I really go after the $20 million."

Weinberger has had success, settling many of his cases for at least a million dollars. I asked him what brands of clothing were more flammable than others.

"The truth is that most clothing manufacturers are extremely lax in fire safety. The companies that go out of the way in keeping clothing safe are one in a 100. Where they spend their money is on lobbying and keeping antiquated regulations in place. Imagine if regulations for tires never changed since 1953. Or for wiring? Yet with clothing we accept it. If you saw some of these women and children in burn centers you'd be outraged."

I asked Weinberger if he had any advice for us consumers. He gave me a world-weary sigh and said, "Be careful. A lot of clothing out there, when exposed accidentally to even a small flame, can become tornadoes of flame. Many garments burn extremely rapidly and give off huge amounts of heat. It's shocking to consumers just how flammable their clothes may be."