T. C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond: Torts II Exam, 30 May 1935

• Main Author: University of Richmond
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: UR Scholarship Repository 1935
• Subjects: eskimo*
• Online Access: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/historicexams/61; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/context/historicexams/article/1009/viewcontent/1935May30_TortsII.pdf

This Torts II exam, given on May 30, 1935, begins with the following question: 1. Defendant manufactures and sells its product known in the trade as ''Eskimo Pie" to dealers to whom it also furnishes a small cake of dry ice, in a paper bag, for refrigeration. In replenishing a dealer's supply one morning, Defendant took the bag containing the dry ice which was left the previous day and threw it into the street. The bag contained a small block of unevaporated dry ice about one-half inch square. Plaintiff, age 6, and other children were playing nearby and saw "smoke" coming from the mouth of the bag. After removing the ice from the bag and playing with it for a time, Plaintiff put it into a citrate of magnesia bottle, partly filled with water, and clamped the lever top down and began to shake it. About then Plaintiff's sister, age 15, saw Plaintiff and, remembering that he had been cautioned against playing with bottles, ordered him to throw it away. He did not obey, and the sister came from the house and forcibly took the bottle which exploded in her hands seriously injuring Plaintiff and herself. Is Defendant liable to Plaintiff and his sister? (N.B. "Dry ice" is CO2 in solid form. At ordinary temperatures, CO2 is in gaseous state, but by applying pressure, it may be liquefied and in turn solidified. At normal temperatures, dry ice changes from solid to gas, and increasingly so when placed in water and agitated. In transition from solid to gas, its volume increases 500 times.) https://scholarship.richmond.edu/historicexams/1009/thumbnail.jpg