Lawsuit Filed Against CVS and Sunbeam After Oster Pressure Cooker Exploded Without Warning

A product liability lawsuit has been filed against Sunbeam and CVS Pharmacy, indicating that an Oster pressure cooker exploded without warning, leaving a Florida woman with severe burns that covered her face, chest and arms.

Germania Madera filed the complaint (PDF) in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court in Florida on February 15, indicating that her Oster pressure cooker was defective and unreasonably dangerous. Sunbeam Products, Inc., CVS Pharmacy, Inc. and Navarro Discount Pharmacy, LLC are each named as defendants in the lawsuit, over their role in manufacturing and selling the pressure cooker.

According to the lawsuit, Madera was cooking with the Oster pressure cooker in January 2020, when it suddenly malfunctioned and the lid exploded off, showering her with the scalding hot contents, which covered her face and body.

Madera claims the pressure cooker was sold in a defective state and was unreasonably dangerous under Florida law. The defects included a failure to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect; a failure to include a safe lid-locking system; a failure to include safety features that could have prevented the explosion; and that its lid top is prone to coming off and exploding during normal use.

The lawsuit also notes that it lacks sufficient label warnings to alert consumers to the risks of using the pressure cooker.

“The [Oster] Pressure Cooker’s scalding hot contents seared Plaintiff’s body, causing serious and permanent burn injuries, excruciating pain, suffering, scarring, and continued bodily harm,” Madera’s lawsuit states. “The injuries sustained by Plaintiff…would not have occurred but for the defects present in the [Oster] Pressure Cooker.”

Pressure Cooker Lawsuits Over Safety Feature Failures

The case joins dozens of similar pressure cooker lawsuits filed in recent months, each raising allegations about unreasonably dangerous designs and defective safety features on several modern devices, including Crock-Pot, Instant Pot, Ninja Foodi and other brands.

Most of the accidents involve severe pressure cooker burn injuries that occurred after the lid was removed while the contents are still under high pressure, typically resulting in burns covering a large percentage of the user’s body. However, other injuries linked to pressure cookers have included eye injuries, broken bones and other complications that resulted from electrocutions, spills or explosions.

As more of these electric pressure cookers have been introduced in recent years, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued several pressure cooker recalls over problems where lids were able to be opened while contents are under pressure, allowing hot contents to be expelled and causing a scald or burn injury to individuals in the immediate area.