A Georgia mother who claimed that her Instant Pot pressure cooker exploded and burned her child recently agreed to a settlement with the manufacturer of the device, Instant Brands Inc.
The amount of the settlement remains confidential, but should the settlement be approved by the court, the injured child will begin receiving monthly payouts once she turns 18 years old.
Instant Brands Reluctant to Provide Evidence of Other Cooker Explosions
According to the complaint, the plaintiff’s Instant Brands’ Instant Pot pressure cooker, model IP-DUO 60 V2, was still pressurized when the lid blew off, allowing the scalding hot contents to spew out and land on her child, burning her.
She says the Instant Pot was “dangerously defective” and that the manufacturer should be held liable for failing to warn about the risks, and for failing to address the faulty lid lock.
The parties went back and forth several times before the settlement. In January 2021, the court granted the plaintiff’s motion to compel Instant Brands to produce evidence of other similar incidents where the lid failed to function as expected.
Instant Brands argued that it should have to produce evidence regarding only incidents involving the IP-DUO 60 V2 model for two years before the incident. The plaintiff argued that the manufacturer should produce evidence of other similar incidents involving this model and other Instant Pot models with nearly identical lids, with no time limit.
The court ordered Instant Brands to produce information on each Instant Pot model which, during the five years preceding the plaintiff’s incident, produced an event in which the lid blew off while the cooker was still pressurized.
Then in May 2021, the court again had to intervene to compel the manufacturer to provide the promised discovery responses and other information.
After these delays, the parties agreed to a settlement in which Instant Brands will pay a monthly amount to the injured child, as well as a final lump sum payout when she turns 22 years old. The court also ordered Instant Brands to pay $6,225 in legal fees to the family.
Other Parents Had Children Burned When Pressure Cookers Exploded
This is just one of many lawsuits that Instant Brands and other pressure cooker manufacturers are currently defending in court. Last year, a Pennsylvania mother of a two-year-old girl filed a lawsuit against Instant Brands, claiming that the manufacturer’s claims of safety were misleading and false.
According to her complaint, she was making soup in the Instant Pot on September 18, 2020. She set the timer for 60 minutes. Once the cooking process was completed, she saw an error message on the screen saying “burn.” She released the pressure valve, and when she thought the pot was no longer under pressure, began to take off the lid.
The lid shot off with great force, spewing scalding hot contents into the plaintiff’s kitchen. Some of it fell on the plaintiff’s child, who was on a nearby chair. The child suffered third-degree burns to her face, neck, chest, left shoulder, and left arm, and required significant debridement and/or skin grafting.
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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