Spotlight: Research and preparation lead to settlement for boy badly burned in stove tipover

Law Reporter, Dec 2001 by Scarlett, Thomas

Jaward v. Hoffman Place Apartments, 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 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 fiture medical expenses, although Abraham may require psychological counseling in the future. Abraham's sister witnessed the accident and suffered emotional distress.

Abraham and his family retained ATLA members Martin K. Brigham and Eunice Trevor, as well as Daniel Bencivenga, all of Philadelphia. Abraham was also represented by a guardian ad litem, ATLA member Stewart L. Cohen, also of Philadelphia. Plaintiffs sued the manufacturer, alleging 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 industry documents he has compiled on this issue. An article on stove tipover cases in the November 2000 issue of TRIAL led them to ATLA member Harry Philo of Detroit, who provided crucial injury 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 to the installer of the stove. The documents showed that stove manufacturers had rejected effective design alternatives as "too costly." Instead, they provided a floor-mounted bracket as an anti-tipover de-vice. Using the industry documents, plaintiffs were able to expose the stove manufacturer's attempted coverup of how pervasive these accidents are and how unsafe its product was. Plaintiffs asked for punitive damages.

Plaintiffs also brought a premises liability lawsuit against the landlord's estate. They alleged that an untrained handyman had installed the stove without attaching the antitipover device. Defendant admitted this violated various Philadelphia safety codes, as well as standards issued by the National Fire Protection Association.

A key element of plaintiffs' strategy was to preserve, on videotape, evidence of Abraham's condition in the first few months after his injury The boy made such a complete recovery that he was able to do handstands at a medical exam demanded by defendants. But the videotapes showing the trauma caused by his burns 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. Plaintiffs received a combined payment of cash plus cost of structure of $5 million. The lifetime benefits are expected to approach $25 million. 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 "ill send a message to the industry that more needs to be done on the tipover hazard."

The manufacturer's counsel assured Brigham and Trevor 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 v. Hoffman Place Apartments are available through the Court Document Sets section in the back of this issue, courtesy of Mr. Brigham.