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Litigation Team Secures Victory for Microwave Oven Manufacturer
A manufacturer of microwave ovens won summary disposition in Michigan on a claim alleging product liability and breach of implied warranty. Stu Goldberg, with the assistance of Adam S. Nightingale and Claire M. Griffin, represented the manufacturer.
Over $63,000 was paid for a claim by a Michigan homeowner’s insurance company for property damage due to a kitchen fire. The kitchen had a microwave oven mounted over a stove. According to the homeowner, neither was being used on the day of the fire. As per the homeowner, who had been mowing the lawn, he entered the house for a reason he did not recall and discovered smoke coming from his kitchen. He discharged his fire extinguisher to put out the fire allegedly started by the microwave oven, never calling the fire department. The homeowner then removed the microwave oven and cleaned up the fire scene.
No one was given an opportunity to inspect the fire scene before it was cleaned by the homeowner.
To evaluate its claim, the homeowner’s insurance company sent the microwave oven to a company it uses to investigate possible product failures. That company’s inspector, despite not being an electrical engineer, certified fire investigator or fire cause and origin expert, opined in a report as well as in a deposition that the fire started inside the control panel of the microwave oven, but he was unable to identify a defect in the microwave or an ignition source.
The manufacturer retained an electrical engineer who was a certified fire and explosion investigator. The engineer examined the microwave oven at the insurance company investigator’s lab and reviewed the single photo of the fire scene (provided by the insurer), taken weeks after the scene had been cleaned. The engineer observed fire patterns on the bottom of the microwave oven outside the control panel and what appeared to be soot on a wooden wall to the left of the stove top and below the microwave oven. He examined the inside of the microwave oven, including the control panel, and found no evidence of any malfunction inside the microwave oven, nor any indication of a defect. Applying the scientific method, the engineer wrote a report and later testified that the fire started below the microwave oven, likely from cooking on the stove.
Despite the engineer’s report, the insurance company pressed its claim. It relied on its product investigator’s report, and its homeowner’s statement and testimony that he saw fire coming from the microwave oven with plastic dripping down onto the stove and no cooking taking place.
Before taking the deposition of the homeowner, Mr. Goldberg made a document request for any photos taken of the fire scene before the scene was cleaned and the microwave oven removed. Five photographs taken by the homeowner before he cleaned up the scene were produced. These photos showed fire extinguisher material on a part of the microwave oven as well as covering much of the stove with the exception of what appeared to be a large area “protected” from fire extinguisher spray about the size of a pot. The photos also showed the lid of a pot (but no pot) on the counter next to the stove, and a pair of oven mitts with soot on them. According to homeowner testimony, the pot was in the cabinet, and despite claiming to be a good housekeeper, he had no explanation for the lid’s location on the countertop nor for what appeared to be smoking gun “witness marks.”
The court found the product failure company inspector’s testimony was unreliable, and that there was no other reliable evidence that the microwave oven caused the fire, in turn, granting summary disposition in favor of the manufacturer.