Opinion ID: 2046018
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Evidence concerning nature of the fire.

Text: The investigation of the Mercers' fire conclusively showed that the fire began in a Gerry brand baby monitor, [2] which was sitting on the bottom shelf of a table in the children's bedroom. The major factual disputes at trial concerned when the fire started and when smoke would have reached the detector installed in the second-floor hallway of the Mercers' duplex to trigger the alarm. As explained in plaintiffs' appellate brief, BRK's alleged liability rests on BRK's decision to market its model 83R ionization smoke detector as a stand-alone safety device when it knew that the model 83R did not promptly alarm to certain types of home fires, like the one that occurred in the Mercers' home. The term stand-alone is plaintiffs' characterization of BRK's conduct in marketing the model 83R with the impression that the model 83R will, absent any other smoke detective device, adequately alarm to a fire. The Mercers called Dr. Joseph Zicherman, a combustion science engineer, who concluded, based upon physical evidence, testing, and research, that the thump the Mercers heard at approximately 8:46 p.m. occurred when the top of the table fell to the floor, after its spindle legs had burned through, due to the burning baby monitor. Dr. Zicherman determined that it would have taken eight to ten minutes for the spindle legs to burn enough to give way, causing the top shelf of the table to fall hitting the floor, which occurred at 8:46 p.m. Based on the burn time of the wood spindle legs, Dr. Zicherman estimated that the fire began between 8:30 and 8:36 p.m. Another expert, Dr. Patrick Pagni, a professor of fire safety engineering, testified on behalf of plaintiffs that if the alarm had sounded when smoke reached the detector, the Mercers would have had about nine minutes to remove the children from the bedroom before conditions within the room became untenable. Plaintiffs' expert, Dr. B. Donald Russell, Associate Dean of the College of Engineering at Texas A & M University, also testified that had a combination or photoelectric detector been installed in the Mercer home on the day of the fire, there would have been sufficient smoke to set off the photoelectric detector and the Mercers would have had adequate warning to remove the children. The Mercers' experts also testified that burning polystyrene, such as the Gerry baby monitor and other plastics involved in the fire, produce large smoke particles, which is characteristic of a slow, smoldering fire, even though a flame is not present. BRK, on the other hand, presented evidence showing that the fire was a short, flaming fire of intense duration that ignited between approximately 8:46 and 8:48 p.m., the approximate time that Jennifer and Nathan saw the lights flicker, heard the thump, and just before Jennifer smelled smoke. BRK's expert, Dr. Leonard Wharton, testified that the thump the Mercers heard was a noise produced when the electrical components of the baby monitor ignited and that the lights flickered due to the short-circuit in the baby monitor. Wharton opined that smoke had not yet reached the detector in a sufficient amount to trigger an alarm at the time Jennifer first went upstairs because the fire was in the initial stages, but that conditions rapidly deteriorated and the smoke levels quickly increased, causing the alarm to sound as heard by Jimmy Sprout (the Mercers' neighbor) by the time that Nathan returned from the kitchen with the fire extinguisher. Dr. Wharton also commented that there would be a delay in the smoke getting from the children's bedroom, where the fire began, to the smoke detector located three rooms away from the children's bedroom. Dr. Wharton further stated that the baby monitor was made of polystyrene, which is a fast burning plastic material that produces a dense, irritating smoke as well as a large amount of heat, which would explain why the wood spindles of the table burned so rapidly. Dr. Wharton also explained that the Mercer children were burned from the intense heat radiating from the burning plastic baby monitor. BRK's experts testified that the Mercer fire could not have lasted more than a half-hour, as suggested by plaintiffs, and that if the fire had been burning more than a half-hour, the children would have died from carbon monoxide asphyxiation. BRK's expert, Gerald Rork, also testified that if the fire had been burning for more than a half-hour, Jennifer would not have been able to get to the second-floor landing because of the intense heat from the fire. The parties' experts seem to agree that the Mercer fire was a flaming, not a slow, smoldering fire, but that the burning polystyrene Gerry baby monitor produced large smoke particles. Additionally, all experts, including BRK's experts, agreed that smoke should have reached the detector within three minutes from ignition and that the detector should have sounded at that time.