A Georgia mother who claims her Instant Pot exploded and burned her baby recently agreed to a settlement with Instant Brands Inc, the manufacturer of the device.
The amount of compensation remains confidential, but if the settlement is approved by the court, the affected child will begin receiving monthly payments after she turns 18 years old.
According to the complaint, Plaintiff’s Instant Brands Instant Pot pressure cooker, model IP-DUO 60 V2, was still pressurized when the lid was lifted and the hot contents splashed out and landed on her baby, burning her.
She said the Instant Pot had a “dangerous defect” and that the manufacturer should be held responsible for not warning about the risks and fixing the problematic lid lock.
Both sides went back and forth several times before reconciliation. In January 2021, the court granted Instant Brands’ plaintiffs’ motion to provide evidence of other similar incidents in which the lid did not work properly.
Instant Brands states that it must provide evidence of incidents involving the IP-DUO 60 V2 model only two years prior to the incident. The plaintiffs allege that the manufacturer must provide evidence of other similar incidents involving this model and other Instant Pot models with nearly identical lids, without a time limit.
The court ordered Instant Brands to provide information about every Instant Pot model whose lid exploded while the stove was still under pressure five years before the plaintiff incident.
Then in May 2021, the courts again had to intervene, forcing manufacturers to provide promised answers and other information.
Following these delays, the parties agreed to a settlement where Instant Brands would make monthly payments to the affected child and a one-time final payment when she turns 22. The court also ordered Instant Brands to pay the family $6,225 in legal fees.
This is just one of many lawsuits Instant Brands and other pressure cooker makers are currently defending in court. Last year, the mother of a two-year-old Pennsylvania girl filed a lawsuit against Instant Brands, alleging that the manufacturer’s safety claims were false and misleading.
According to her complaint, on September 18, 2020, she was cooking soup in the “Instant Pot”. She sets a timer for 60 minutes. After the cooking process was completed, she saw a “Burning” error message on the screen. She loosened the pressure valve and began removing the lid when she thought the jar was no longer pressurized.
The lid snapped open, and a hot substance splashed into the plaintiff’s kitchen. Part of it fell on the plaintiff’s child, who was sitting in a nearby chair. The child suffered third-degree burns to his face, neck, chest, left shoulder and left arm, which required extensive debridement and/or skin grafting.
Eric Chaffin specializes in representing plaintiffs, especially in mass tort disputes, and prides himself on providing unrivaled professional legal services to achieve the specific goals of his clients and their families. Both his work and his case received national media coverage, including ABC’s Good Morning America.
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Post time: Sep-26-2022