Sensio Bella Multi-Cooker Lawsuit Filed Over Burns From Hot Contents Ejected By Pressure Cooker

A California woman indicates in a recently filed lawsuit that she was severely burned by a Sensio Bella pressure cooker, which unexpectedly exploded scalding hot contents when she tried to open it.

The complaint (PDF) was filed by Jennifer Trujillo in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Florida on October 11, alleging her Bella 6 Quart 10 on 1 Multi Cooker was defectively designed, resulting in a lack of adequate safety measures to prevent injuries to consumers. The lawsuit names Sensio Inc. and Bellahousewares.com, Inc. as the defendants.

According to the lawsuit, Trujillo received the Sensio Bella Multi-Cooker as a gift in December 2018. However, she was using the cooker on November 13, 2019, when it showered her with boiling hot contents which left her with severely painful and disfiguring burn injuries.

The lawsuit indicates the Sensio pressure cooker was unreasonably dangerous and defective, and that “a reasonably prudent manufacturer would not have put it on the market assuming that manufacturer knew of its dangerous condition.”

Trujillo presents claims of strict liability, negligence, breach of warranty, and failure to warn. She seeks compensatory damages.

Problems with Exploding Pressure Cookers

The case joins a growing number of similar pressure cooker lawsuits filed in recent months, each raising similar allegations that various different modern products sold in recent years feature unreasonably dangerous designs and defective safety features, including Instant Pot, Crock-Pot, Ninja Foodi and other popular brands.

The most common problems occur when the safety features fail to prevent the lid from being removed while the contents are still under high pressure, which can result in burns ranging from first to third degree, and typically cover a large percentage of a person’s body. These types of burns from pressure cookers can leave patients prone to infections and sometimes requiring amputations. 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.

Most recently, a massive Crock-Pot recall was issued in November 2020, impacting nearly 1 million 6-Quart Express Crock Multi-Cookers with lid locking defects, after at least 99 burn injuries were reported.