Crock-Pot lawsuit alleges lid detachment defect leads to burn injuries

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Crock-Pot lid defect lawsuit overview: 

• Who: Debra McGowan filed a lawsuit against Sunbeam Products, Inc. 
• Why: McGowan claims Sunbeam designed and sold a pressure cooker with a defective lid which could come off while its contents were still cooking, causing consumers to suffer a “significant” risk of injury. 
• Where: The lawsuit was filed in Texas federal court. 

Sunbeam designed, manufactured, marketed, and sold a pressure cooker with a defective lid that can cause consumers to suffer a “significant” risk of injury and bodily harm, a new lawsuit alleges. 

Plaintiff Debra McGowan claims Sunbeam’s Crock-Pot Express Crock Multicooker has a defective lid which can become removed while the contents of the unit are still cooking, and that the company should have known about the issue and stopped selling the product. 

McGowan argues that the lids for the pressure cookers can come off the unit due to a buildup of pressure from steam and heat, causing “scalding hot contents to be projected from the unit and into the surrounding area.” 

“The Plaintiff in this case was able to remove the lid while the Pressure Cooker retained pressure, causing her serious and substantial bodily injuries and damages,” states the Crock-Pot lawsuit. 

Sunbeam accused of falsely touting safety of its crock-pot devices

McGowan claims Sunbeam had touted the safety of the devices in its marketing for them, with the company allegedly stating the devices were designed with “safety in mind.”

“Despite Defendant Sunbeam’s claims of ‘safety,’ it designed, manufactured, marketed, imported, distributed and sold, both directly and through third-party retailers, a product that suffers from serious and dangerous defects,” states the Crock-Pot lawsuit. 

Sunbeam would ultimately initiate a recall for nearly one million of its pressure cooker devices — including the one used by McGowan — two months after McGowan allegedly suffered her injuries, according to the Crock-Pot recall.

McGowan claims Sunbeam, at that time, acknowledged that it had received as many as 119 reports of incidents where the lid for the Crock-Pot devices came off while under pressure, resulting in at least 99 burns. 

Do you own a pressure cooker that was recalled by Sunbeam? Let us know in the comments! 

The plaintiffs are represented by Collen A. Clark of Clark | Von Plonski | Anderson, and Adam. J Kress of Johnson Becker, PLLC. 

The Crock-Pot lid defect lawsuit is McGowan v. Sunbeam Products, Inc., Case No. 3:22-cv-01765, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

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