Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Judge OKs suit against Bacardi over flaming rum display

“A woman who claims she was severely burned when a bottle of Bacardi 151 rum caught fire during a restaurant bartender’s pyrotechnic display has won her attempt to proceed with a personal injury and products liability action against Bacardi and the restaurant.” [Walder, NYLJ]

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7 Comments

  • Would a non-removable flame arrester make a difference?

    The bartender poured the rum out and set it on fire. How could the arrester stop that?

  • I think most people who read this are thinking “Restaurant liability, quite likely. Bacardi liability, how?”

    Bob

  • Exactly.

    • By Doug

  • Yeah, I’m not seeing how the flame arrester is even at issue if it did not somehow contribute to our cause the fire. Is the plaintiff suggesting that the arrester should not even permit the liquid to be poured from the bottle?

    Goodman, citing an affidavit from Elizabeth Trendowski, an instructor of “flair bartending” who stated that 80 to 100 proof liquors are not as flammable as Bacardi 151, which contains 75 percent alcohol, concluded that “it appears, at least for purposes of this motion, that there is a feasible alternative design—a rum that is lower in proof.”

    What? That’s not a design issue. It’s a totally different product. Bacardi sells “normal” 80- or 100-proof rum, too. The bartender chose not to use it because he wanted to set stuff on fire. What if he had used kerosene instead? Would the plaintiff still have a cause of action against the kerosene manufacturer?

    This ruling makes absolutely no sense.

    • By E-Bell

  • Ahem. The article does not make it clear, however the PDF of the court’s ruling, found here:

    http://www.nylj.com/nylawyer/adgifs/decisions/052810goodman.pdf

    states:

    According to plaintiff, Brother Jimmy’s had a custom and practice of engaging in pyrotechnic displays in which Bacardi 151 would be poured on the bar and lit on fire. Plaintiff alleges that, on the date of the accident, a bartender, Kevin Bulla, intentionally poured Bacardi 151 onto the surface of the bar, that the Bacardi 151 combusted and exploded, and that the flaming contents of the bottle shot out of the bottle and engulfed her in flames.

    While I don’t believe this actually happened, it does give the judge some basis for denying summary judgment to Bacardi (even if I disagree with that basis – it’s not Bacardi’s fault that the flame arrester was removed by the bartender).

    • By E-Bell

  • Goodman, citing an affidavit from Elizabeth Trendowski, an instructor of “flair bartending” who stated that 80 to 100 proof liquors are not as flammable as Bacardi 151, which contains 75 percent alcohol, concluded that “it appears, at least for purposes of this motion, that there is a feasible alternative design—a rum that is lower in proof.”

    Besides the idiocy of the statement by Goodman about the feasibility of an alternative design of rum, how does she accept an affidavit from a bartender instructor about the flammability of liquors as authoritative. He is clearly not an expert witness.

  • I am having trouble in seeing how the fire on top of the bar harmed the patron. I think of my brief work for a heat treatment company where clothes often caught fire. Workers would pat out the flames and go on about their business. And alcohol is used in fire eater acts. Did the woman take a shower in the rum?