A California woman recently filed a new Instant Pot pressure cooker lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. She claims that the defendants’ claims about the safety of its products are misleading and that the products suffer from serious and dangerous defects.
Plaintiff Claims She Was Able to Open the Cooker While It was Still Under Pressure
According to her complaint, the plaintiff was cooking with the Instant Pot on November 28, 2019. She was using it for its intended purpose of preparing a meal for herself and/or family, but she says the cooker did not work as expected.
Contrary to her expectations, she was able to rotate and open the lid on the cooker while it was still under pressure. This allowed the scalding hot contents to explode out and onto her. She claims to have suffered from serious bodily injuries that have cost her medical expenses, lost wages, physical pain, and mental anguish.
Defendants’ Representations About Safety are Wrong, Plaintiff Claims
The cooker at issue was the Instant Pot Programmable Electric Pressure Cooker, the “Ultra” model. Instant Brands touted the safety of this and its other pressure cookers, claiming they were convenient, dependable, and safe.
Instant Brands also uses multiple media outlets including infomercials and YouTube to advertise its products. In one review on hippressurecooking.com, the text reads, “While all the other Instant Pot models have 10 safety systems, the ULTRA claims to have 11!”
These include:
- primary safety release valve, which is made to release pressure if the internal pressure gets too high
- the safety lid lock, which is supposed to prevent accidental opening of the cooker while it is pressurized
- the lid position detection, which monitors whether the lid is in an unsafe zone for pressure cooking
- the encapsulated last-resort pressure release, which is supposed to release the pressure into the body of the unit between the outer lining and the inner pot should the primary pressure regulating valve fail
- quick-release button, which automatically puts the valve in the locking position
Yet the plaintiff claims that these safety mechanisms did not protect her from getting burned, as she was able to rotate and remove the lid while the pot was still under pressure. She claims that the defendants’ representations about safety are wrong and put innocent consumers in harm’s way.
Other Pressure Cooker Manufacturers Also Defending Lawsuits
This case joins many others already proceeding in courts around the country. Each raises similar allegations about the safety mechanisms included on pressure cookers, and about how the manufacturers mislead consumers into thinking their products are safe for normal use.
Though Instant Pot has been named in other lawsuits, so too have other manufacturers like Ninja Foodi, Crock-Pot, and Tristar.
Exclusively focused on representing plaintiffs, especially in mass tort litigation, Eric Chaffin prides himself on providing unsurpassed professional legal services in pursuit of the specific goals of his clients and their families. Both his work and his cases have been featured in the national press, including on ABC’s Good Morning America.
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