Jaward v. Hoffman Place Apts., Pa., Phila. County C.C.P., Mar. Term 2000, No. 1388, Sept. 4, 2001.
Abraham Jaward, 5, stepped onto an open gas stove door in his family's Philadelphia apartment. The stove tipped over and a pot of scalding water poured onto the boy's lower body, causing second- and third-degree burns. When his mother removed his pants to douse him with cold water, his skin fell off onto her hands.
Abraham had to undergo almost two years of physical rehabilitation to regain the full use of his legs. His mother, a nurse's assistant, changed his wound dressings daily, which was physically painful to the boy and caused psychological distress to both mother and child. His past medical expenses totaled $55,000. There was no claim of future medical expenses, although there is a chance Abraham may require psychological counseling in the future.
Abraham and his family retained, ATLA members Martin K. Brigham, Eunice Trevor, and Daniel Bencivenga, all of Brigham and Trevor, P.C.,Philadelphia. Abraham was also represented by a guardian ad litem, ATLA member Stewart L. Cohen of Philadelphia. Plaintiffs filed suit against the manufacturer, alleging that the stove was defectively designed. Specifically, plaintiffs asserted that the stove door operated as a fulcrum, allowing the appliance to tip forward when even slight weight was placed on the door.
After receiving assistance from the ATLA Exchange, the attorneys contacted ATLA member Dan Sciano of San Antonio, who has represented many stove tipover victims and generously shared thousands of industry documents he has compiled on this issue. An article on stove tipover cases in the November 2000 issue of TRIAL led them to contact ATLA member Harry Philo of Detroit, who provided crucial accident statistics.
Using this material, plus documents they subpoenaed from the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, the attorneys demonstrated how the manufacturer explicitly tried to shift responsibility for injury prevention from a safe stove design to relying on the installer of the stove. The documents showed that stove manufacturers had rejected effective design alternatives as "too costly" in favor of providing a floor-mounted bracket as an anti-tipover device. Using the industry documents, withheld from discovery by the defendant, Plaintiffs were able to expose the stove manufacturer's attempted cover up of how pervasive these accidents are and how unsafe their product was. At the close of discovery, Plaintiffs were able to amend their complaint to seek punitive damages.
Plaintiffs also brought a premises liability lawsuit against the estate of the apartment complex's late owner. They alleged that an inexperienced and untrained handyman had installed the stove without attaching the anti-tipover device. Defendant admitted that installing a stove without the device violated various Philadelphia safety codes, as well as standards issued by the National Fire Protection Association.
An important element of plaintiffs' strategy was to preserve, on videotape, evidence of Abraham's condition the first few months after his injury. The boy made such a complete recovery that he spontaneously performed handstands at the medical examination demanded by defendants. But the early videotapes showing the trauma caused by his burns—including the painful dressing changes-and the difficult rehabilitation constituted powerful evidence of the harm plaintiffs had endured.
The videotapes also included interviews with family members and treating physicians, plus a demonstration of the incident using a mannequin to document the splash pattern of the scalding water. This confirmed that the burns were caused by the stove's tipping over rather than by Abraham's pulling a pot off the stove, as defendants claimed.
The parties reached a structured settlement with the manufacturer and the landlord's estate during mediation, three weeks before trial. Abraham, as well as his sister and mother, who witnessed the accident, received a combined payment of cash plus cost of structure of $5 million. The total lifetime benefits are expected to approach $35 million. The amount of each defendant's contribution to the settlement is confidential.
"Abraham has made a remarkable recovery from this accident, but his life will never be the same," said Brigham, who added that he hopes the settlement "will send a message to the industry that more needs to be done on the tipover hazard."
Brigham and Trevor obtained the assurance of the manufacturer's counsel that he would work to ensure that the company provides warnings on the inside of oven doors, alerting users to make sure the anti-tip bracket is installed. The apartment complex has retrofitted its ovens to include the bracket.
Plaintiffs' experts were Megan Bronson, burn survival counseling, Belmont, Michigan; Donald H. Thomas, biomechanics, Coopersburg, Pennsylvania; and Stephen B. Wilcox, human factors; Robert A. Bremner, property management; and Paul M. Glat, burn surgery, all of Philadelphia.
Defendants' experts were Carl Suchovsky, gas appliances, Walton Hills, Ohio; and Jerry L. Purswell, product warnings, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Documents in Jaward are available through the Court Documents section in the back of this issue, courtesy of Mr. Brigham.