Ibrahim Qasim bought a sixty-four ounce container of EcoLogic Bed Bug Killer 2 (“Product”) from Home Depot on August 26, 2019. On September 2, 2019, at 9:00 a.m., Ibrahim sprayed all sixty-four ounces of the product into the living room of the apartment he and Nouh Qasim shared. At 5:00 p.m., as Nouh turned on the gas stove in the kitchen to make coffee, a fireball erupted, severely burning both Plaintiffs. The Newark Fire Department found sodium azide in the bathtub drain, a highly toxic chemical compound “used to make explosives and methamphetamine.” First responders also found a gasoline can in the apartment.
Plaintiffs sued Defendants Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. (“Spectrum”), United Industries Corporation (“United”) and Liquid Fence Company for strict products liability and violations of the Consumer Fraud Act.
Plaintiffs retained Dr. James W. Pugh, Ph.D. as an expert, who summarized his analysis in a two-page report (“Pugh Report”). Pugh concluded, to a reasonable degree of scientific, engineering, ergonomic, and human factors certainty, that the defective labeling of the product was the proximate cause of the accident.
Defendants argued that Pugh’s expert report should be excluded because it concluded the warning label on the product caused the fire without “any mention of scientific methodologies, mathematical calculations, or independent testing and analysis.”
Materials Science Expert Witness
Dr. James Whitworth Pugh, Ph.D. earned an undergraduate degree in metallurgy and materials science and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (“MIT”).
While a graduate student at MIT, Pugh worked at the U.S. Army Materials and Mechanics Research Lab. After graduating, Pugh taught biomechanics, engineering, and materials sciences at several institutions, including New York University.
Discussion by the Court
A. Qualification
Pugh opined about the Product’s warning label and the cause of the fire. Pugh has extensive experience analyzing “products, warnings, and instructions.” So, he has more knowledge than the average layperson about the adequacy of warnings. Pugh, therefore, is qualified to opine about the Product’s warning label.
Pugh, however, is not qualified to testify about the cause of the fire. To be sure, Pugh testified he had “done a lot of thermal injuries analysis” and was “exposed to a large amount of fire and thermal events” in his work at MIT. But analyzing burns on the human body or seeing fires in a ballistics laboratory are fundamentally different than investigating the origin of a fire.
Pugh has never been a fire investigator, been a member of a professional fire investigation organization, or published an article on the causes of fires. Pugh has no training in recognizing burn patterns. And the record did not reflect that he has any practical experience investigating the origin of a fire. Instead, Pugh’s sole experience with fire causation comes from owning a sailboat with an isopropyl alcohol stove, and taking courses at MIT covering isopropyl alcohol fires. But the fact that Pugh knows what an alcohol fire looks like in a stove on a boat does not qualify him to give an expert opinion that this fire was an alcohol fire, or the Product caused it.
While Pugh is qualified to testify about warning labels, the Court held that he is not qualified to testify about the cause of the fire.
B. Reliability
i. Fire Causation
Pugh’s opinion about the cause of the fire lacked good grounds because it is based entirely on comparing pictures of the apartment to his experience using an alcohol stove on a boat.
Pugh did not test the Product or account for the distance between where Ibrahim sprayed the Product and the site of the fire, the time between when Ibrahim sprayed the Product and the fire, or the presence of other flammable substances in the apartment. He “used little, if any, methodology beyond his own intuition.”
The Court concluded that Pugh had no reliable basis to conclude the Product’s isopropyl alcohol content caused the fire.
ii. Failure to Warn
Pugh’s conclusions about the product’s warning label lacked signs of reliability. Here, the product had a flammability warning. Examining a fourteen-ounce spray can of the product, Pugh concluded the text was too small. However, it did not appear that he examined the warning on the much larger sixty-four-ounce container of the product Ibrahim used on the day of the accident.
Pugh did not consider federal pesticide labeling standards, industry practice, the Product’s accident history, scientific testing, whether his proposed open flame pictogram was feasible, or whether it would have prevented the accident. Nor did he provide any visual aids to explain his conclusion that the Product had an inadequate warning and that his proposed warning was adequate. At most, Pugh asserted that the product’s warning did not comply with two standards from the American National Standards Institute (“ANSI”) and a warning handbook from 2006.
According to the Court, neither Pugh’s opinion that the product caused the fire, nor his opinion that the flammability warning on the product was inadequate, are reliable.
C. Fit
At the Daubert hearing, Pugh testified that it was “unlikely” the Product caused the fire if Ibrahim’s timeline were true. Pugh added he “disagreed with the characterization of the time that Ibrahim applied it in view of what [Nouh] said.” But Pugh did not explain why he disagreed with Ibrahim’s account and believed Nouh’s. Nor did he address the issue in his report. Instead, he simply concluded the fire started when Nouh said it did. That is of no assistance to the factfinder.
Likewise, although Ibrahim testified “he never read the warnings or instructions on the product” before using it, Pugh concluded that an open flame pictogram would have prevented the fire. Pugh entirely failed to explain why a Plaintiff who did not read any of the warnings on the product would nonetheless read a different warning on the product. Here, too, the lack of a why or wherefore did not assist the factfinder. The Court held that Pugh’s opinions, accordingly, did not fit the proceedings.
Held
The Court granted the Defendants’ motion to exclude the testimony of Plaintiffs’ expert Dr. James Pugh.
Key Takeaway
An expert’s testimony ‘fits’ the proceedings, if it will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue. Pugh’s analysis is bereft of a why or wherefore.
Because Pugh is not qualified to render expert opinions on fire causation, his conclusions on fire causation and adequate warnings are unreliable, and his analysis does not fit the proceedings, the Court excluded his testimony.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Qasim Et Al V. Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. |
| Docket Number: | 2:21cv18744 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, New Jersey |
| Order Date: | January 12, 2026 |
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