$5M for Burns to Toddlers
An Essex County jury awarded $5 million on June 16 to two toddlers burned by a pot of boiling water, finding the building owners and the mother of one of the children at fault. Of the total awarded, $4.2 million is earmarked for Jennie Richemond, 22 months old at the time of the accident and $800,000 to her cousin, Jhoven Vilsena, then 25 months old.
After putting on water to boil on Dec 22, 2001 and going to take a shower, Jennie's mother, Edna Sidney, heard a crash and found the children under the stove, scalded. Jennie had burns on 42 percent of her body, Jhoven on 10 percent, mainly her feet and legs.
Cohen says the children must have opened the stove door and climbed on the stove, causing it to tip over. The suit alleged that Elizabeth Prevalon, owner of the four-unit building in Newark, ignored complaints of tipping and that prior owners Aline and Michel Luc Charles failed to install an anti-tip bracket that came with the stove.
The plaintiffs also sued Electrolux Home Products of Cleveland, maker of the Tappan brand stove, alleging improper design because there was no anti-tipping interlock device and inadequate warnings. The jurors found Prevalon and Sidney each 40 percent liable and the Charleses 20 percent. They found Electrolux's safety information inadequate but not a proximate cause of the harm.
(This information was obtained from the New Jersey Law Journal)
