Electrolux Dryer Fires Lead to Class Action Lawsuit Settlement

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Electrolux Home Products Inc. has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit over allegations that its Frigidaire, Kenmore, Kelvinator, Gibson, Tappan, Crosley, and White Westinghouse brand dryers contain defects that cause them to catch fire. Consumers who experienced a clothes dryer fire may be eligible to claim up to $1,300 from the Electrolux class action settlement. Class Members who didn’t experience a fire may claim a cash rebate of up to $350 off the price of a replacement Electrolux-brand or Frigidaire-brand clothes dryer or other home appliance.

The Electrolux settlement resolves a class action lawsuit claiming that Electrolux-designed and manufactured “ball-hitch” clothes dryers have “uniform and dangerous defects… that cause these dryers to catch fire, fail, char clothes, and spread any fire outside the dryers, thereby damaging property and creating a serious safety risk to consumers and the public.”

Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that the Electrolux dryers contain a design defect that “causes lint to accumulate behind the drum in direct proximity to the heat source,” which “can ignite and travel into the drum” and sometimes travel to the combustible plastic air duct and blower housing to ignite the lint contained there.

Under the terms of the Electrolux dryer class action settlement, the company will provide the following benefits to Class Members:

1) A notice to all owners of the affected products about the issues regarding the dryers;
2) No-cost dryer cleaning for issues that could indicate the potential for a future dryer fire;
3) Compensation for past dryer fires of up to $1,300 in out-of-pocket expenses paid for the replacement cost of a dryer as well as any property damaged by the incident;
4) The same as above for those who suffer from a dryer fire within 10 years of purchase;
5) Up to $350 off a new home appliance or replacement from Electrolux; and
6) A 20-percent discount for Class Members for other products sold by the company.

Plaintiffs alleged in the Electrolux dryer class action lawsuit that their Electrolux dryers all caught fire over the course of several months in 2012, and that the appliance manufacturer knew of the risks regarding the lint trap. The class action lawsuit noted that “testing Electrolux conducted in 1998 established that its defective dryer design permitted a fire to quickly spread outside the dryer cabinet.”

Further, they alleged that the company “chose to sell millions of these dangerous and defective dryers to consumers” of which thousands reportedly caught fire, resulting in numerous counts of litigation and the launch of an internal investigation by the company regarding the lint trap and potential dryer fires.

The Electrolux class action lawsuit was on the cusp of certification and the two sides had already produced hundreds of thousands of documents by the end of 2013. Two days of mediation and other conversations with the assistance of a mediator resulted in a class action settlement for a proposed Class of all U.S. residents who purchased or currently own an Electrolux ball-hitch dryer sold under the brand names Frigidaire, White Westinghouse, Kelvinator, Gibson, Tappan, Crosley or Kenmore.

Settlement Claim Forms must be submitted by “the later of Dec. 15, 2014, or within 200 days after the date of preliminary approval,” according to the April 30 motion for preliminary approval of the Electrolux class action settlement.

A Settlement Website and claim filing instructions were not immediately available. Keep checking TopClassActions.com or sign up for our free newsletter for the latest updates. You can also mark this article as a “Favorite” using your free Top Class Actions account to receive notifications when this article is updated.

The plaintiffs are represented by class action lawyers from Wexler Wallace LLP, Kreindler & Kreindler LLP, Hansen Reynolds Dickinson Crueger LLC and Greg Coleman Law PC.

The Electrolux Dryer Fire Class Action Lawsuit is Shawn Roberts et al. v. Electrolux Home Products Inc., Case No. 12-cv-01644, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

UPDATE: Claim Forms for the Electrolux dryer class action settlement are now available! Click here for detailed instructions on how to file a claim.

UPDATE 2: The Electrolux dryer fire class action lawsuit was granted final approval on Sept. 11, 2014.