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Article: Jury gives runaway verdict: plaintiffs awarded $50 million in case where gas water heater explodes.(Legal Brief)
- Article from:
- LP/Gas
- Article date:
- February 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Questex Media Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Occasionally, I will read about a case that will demonstrate the importance of humanizing large manufacturers, gas companies and/or their insurers. Recently, I became aware of such an action that was tried in a Baldwin County circuit court in Alabama. We were not involved in this case.
In Krantz v. A.O. Smith et al., the plaintiffs' decedent was mortally injured after a gas water heater in his garage exploded. This was a natural gas explosion, not propane. The evidence demonstrated that, only days before the explosion, the decedent noticed that the pilot light on his home's gas water heater had extinguished.
In trying to fix the problem, he asked for ...