Deadly Stoves – Nationwide Stove Tipping & Defective Stove Lawsuit

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Most Kitchen Ranges and Stoves Pose a Serious Threat to Millions of Americans … Stove tipping has become an unrecognized epidemic in our country that has caused more than 100 reported cases of death and injury from scalding and burns due to hot foods and liquids spilling from the stove top, and from the weight crushing anyone in the path of the tipping ranges.

$546 Million Settlement Agreement

Sears Must Stabilize 4 Million Dangerous Stoves Under $546 Million Class Action Settlement Agreement. The case highlights the need for congress to pass stronger consumer product safety laws.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After more than 100 deaths and severe injuries caused by household stoves that tipped over onto people, Sears, Roebuck and Co. – one of a number of companies that sold and installed these stoves – has agreed to a major recall that will cost the retail giant as much as $546 million and cover nearly 4 million households.

“Approximately 15 to 20 million kitchens in the United States are equipped with a range that can tip over and crush, scald or burn whoever is standing in front of it,” said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook.”

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Sears settles suit over allegedly dangerous stoves

What You Can Do & How We Can Help

If you or a loved one have been injured or killed due to a stove or kitchen range tipping over, you should contact us immediately. You may be entitled to compensation for your injuries and/or loss and we can help.

What’s the problem?

All stovetops and kitchen ranges have the potential to tip over and cause serious, life-threatening personal injuries or death. Unfortunately, stove tipping seems to mostly affect those who are the most susceptible to serious injuries or death including babies, children and the elderly.

According to documents from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and an internal memo from Sears, manufacturers and the government have known about the lurking danger of stove tipping for more than twenty years.

Since the early 1980s, manufacturers of ranges began using lighter-gauge steel to reduce costs, even though they quickly learned that this resulted in a tendency for the lighter-weight appliances to tip over when weight was applied to the oven door.

The problem can be prevented with an inexpensive, L-shaped bracket mounted on the back of the range. However, the use of these safety brackets have only been required by industry standards since 1991, and unfortunately many older stoves may not have them.

According to public Citizen, Sears, one of the largest retailers of gas and electric ranges, admitted in an internal memo in 1996 that the brackets were installed for only an estimated 5 percent of ranges sold – and possibly as low as 2-3 percent. In a 1999 letter to Sears, Underwriters Laboratories informed the retailer that it expected the ranges with the UL Listing Mark to be installed with the anti-tip safety brackets supplied by the manufacturers. Sears gave a misleading response to UL in 2000 that implied the company was in full compliance with the UL standard.

When considering the lack of consistent reporting and the 15 to 20 million kitchens with these ovens; our firm believes the numbers of those injured or killed by stove tipping are much greater then reported by the CPSC.

Injuries Reported – Stove Tipping The Unrecognized Epidemic

Texas Stove Tipping Severe Burn Injury — Stephanie Moran was cooking chicken on the Sears manufactured stove in her apartment while her two children, Jarod Moran, 2, and Jamie Hamblin, 1, played in the kitchen. The pot was out of their reach on the back burner when Jarod pulled down the oven door and stood on it. The stove began to tip over. The pot of boiling water and chicken flew into the air, landing on Jamie and scalding the lower right side of his body.

“Immediately I grabbed him,” recalled Moran, 34, who lives near Dallas. “I could feel how hot his clothes were. He was burning.” That was 12 years ago, but Moran said her son still faces surgery to reduce prominent scars.

California Stove Tipping Severe Burn Injury — In another case, a Los Angeles woman received $20 million from Frigidaire Home Products and a local retailer after her range tipped over and scalded her son and two nephews with a simmering pot of stew. The children suffered third-degree burns over half their bodies.

New York Stove Tipping Death — In October in Elmira, N.Y., after an 18-month-old boy and his 3-year-old brother tried to reach cookies on top of a stove. The range tipped over, killing the baby.

Florida Stove Tipping Death — In December, an 18-month-old girl in Bradenton, Fla., died after a stove fell on her.

These stories account for just four (4) of at least 100 deaths and severe injuries caused by tipping stoves.

What’s being done?

The nonprofit Underwriters Laboratories created nationally recognized voluntary standards for new ranges and required that they be fitted with anti-tip devices and include a warning in instruction manuals.

Consumer safety groups like Public Citizen have worked zealously to petition the sellers of ranges to notify all owners of the danger of tipping stoves and the need for safety brackets, and to install the brackets for any existing owners of the stoves.

In March 2007, Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) requested and received documentation from the CPSC, and now the House Energy and Commerce committee may hold investigative hearings.

“American consumers are being killed and terribly injured by companies who are cynically refusing to make their ranges safe and by the agency established to protect them,” said Claybrook. “Action to fix this preventable hazard will come far too late for the many people who have been maimed and killed, but we hope it comes in time to save countless others.”

Do I Have a Defective Stove or Stove Tipping Lawsuit?

The Products Liability & Personal Injury Litigation Group at our law firm is an experienced team of trial lawyers that focus exclusively on the representation of plaintiffs in stove tipping or defective stove tip-over lawsuits.