The makers of the Instant Pot line of electric cooking products have been hit with a class action lawsuit, asserting they were aware of a defect in their products that allowed the cooking lids to be opened when food was still pressure cooking, allegedly causing boiling hot food to erupt from the cookers, leaving users at risk of potentially severe burns.
On June 2, attorneys with the Clifford Law Offices, of Chicago; Morgan & Morgan Complex Litigation Group, of San Francisco; and McLaughlin Law Firm, of Denver, Illinois, filed suit in Chicago federal court against Instant Brands Inc.
Instant Brands, which is based in suburban Downers Grove, does business as the Instant Pot Company.
Shannon McNulty
| Clifford Law Offices
According to the lawsuit, Instant Brands has been aware since at least 2016 that its very popular Instant Pot line of electric cooking products carried a potentially serious defect.
According to the complaint, the company claims the products have been designed to not allow users to open the lid on the Instant Pot while the product is pressure cooking, unless more than 100 pounds of rotational force is gradually applied.
However, the complaint asserts this is not always the case.
The lawsuit includes several examples of complaints published by consumers as far back as 2016, claiming they suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns after opening their Instant Pots while their food was still being cooked under pressure.
Further, the complaint asserts Instant Brands, despite allegedly being aware of the potential design defect, made no real effort to notify consumers of the risk and continued to market their products as they had before the defect was allegedly made known to them.
“Despite having notice and knowledge of the Defect, Defendant failed to provide a Defect-free Instant Pot to Plaintiffs and Class Members, failed to provide free repairs of the defective Instant Pot, and failed to provide any form of compensation for the damages resulting from the Defect,” the plaintiffs said in their complaint.
Neither of the named plaintiffs, Havens nor Wilkerson, claim to have been among those who suffered burns.
Rather, they are claiming they have been deprived of the use of their Instant Pots out of fear of suffering burns, after they learned of the alleged possible defects in the products they had purchased and used in the past.
They said they are also no longer able to use or return their Instant Pots.
They claim Instant Brands has breached its expressed and implied warranty of product safety, and has violated the federal Magnuson Moss Warranty Act, which addresses “misleading and deceptive warranties.”
They further allege Instant Brands has committed fraud, and violated state consumer protection laws in California and Florida.
The plaintiffs seek to expand the action to include potentially hundreds of thousands of others who have purchased Instant Pot products, as well as special subclasses of Instant Pot customers in the states of California and Florida.
The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages, including punitive damages, plus attorney fees.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Shannon M. McNulty, of Clifford Law; Michael F. Ram and Marie N. Appel, of Morgan & Morgan; and George E. McLaughlin, of McLaughlin Law.