Slippery Shoes

I only took three steps on those shoes --into the dinette area, which has a vinyl floor. The heels were plastic and the soles were vinyl. I never waxed the floor, so it wasn't slippery; I was very careful about that. My heel slipped on the vinyl and down I went. They had to remove my kneecap. It was a three-hour operation.

After that accident in her Costa Mesa, Calif., home three years ago, Zayda Hanberry sought $36,000 in damages. Mrs. Hanberry, a retired dancer and movie bit player in her 60s, claimed that the heels of her new shoes were unsafe on vinyl floors. She not only sued the store that had sold her the shoes but also haled the wholesaler into court along with the Hearst Corp., which had given the shoes its Good Housekeeping Consumer's Guarantee Seal.

To many housewives, that seal--successor to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval--has long symbolized quality. Not many buyers are aware that only products advertised in Good Housekeeping qualify for the imprimatur. In fact, Hearst does not guarantee that the merchandise is safer or better than competing products of comparable price. "We satisfy ourselves that products advertised in Good Housekeeping are good ones," says the publisher, "and that the advertising claims made for them in our magazine are truthful."

"Misrepresentation." The fine print on the seal promises only that Hearst will replace a defective product that it endorses or refund the buyer's money. Now, however, a three-judge state appeals court in San Diego has ruled in Mrs. Hanberry's case that the magazine may be sued for damages when goods that it guarantees cause injury.

Reversing a lower court that threw out the suit against Hearst, the justices declared that when a magazine endorses a product "for its own economic gain and for the purpose of encouraging and inducing the public to buy it," the publisher should be liable for "negligent misrepresentation."

To recover damages, Mrs. Hanberry must now try to prove to a trial court that Good Housekeeping did not conduct adequate tests to determine whether the shoes had slippery heels. Even if she does not collect, the decision may well enable other Californians to hold Good Housekeeping strictly accountable for the products that it "guarantees."

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