Sears settles oven suit
ST. LOUIS (AP) - February 20, 2008 Under an agreement signed off on last month by a Madison County
judge, Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based Sears will offer to fix all
brands of its freestanding or slide-in kitchen ranges in as many as
3.9 million homes by bolting them to a wall or floor.
The deal covers Sears ranges sold from mid-2000 through last
Sept. 18, when a judge granted the settlement temporary approval.
The deal resolving the lawsuit dating to July 2004 also requires
Sears to install safety brackets in newly purchased ranges for the
next three years.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs estimate the settlement could cost
Sears more than $500 million. But Sears, in a statement Wednesday
to The Associated Press, said only that "the parties dispute many
aspects of the case, including the value of the settlement, which
Sears estimates to be a small fraction of what plaintiffs counsel
estimates."
The statement then directed the AP to the settlement's Web site,
www.searsrangesettlement.com.
Consumer groups, which were not involved in the lawsuit, say
more than 100 people have been killed or injured from scalding and
burns caused by hot foods and liquids spilling from the stove top,
or from being crushed by the weight of a stove that has tipped
over.
Those groups insist Sears and other retailers who deliver a
stove often fail to connect "anti-tip brackets" meant to prevent
injuries by keeping the appliance stable if a sufficient amount of
weight is placed on an open door or storage bin drawer.
Consumer groups pointed to the use by stove-makers of
lighter-gauge steel since the 1980s to cut costs, making those
appliances more prone to tip over when weight was applied to the
oven door.
Consumers will have the option of having an anti-tip device
installed for free, receiving $100 if they already had Sears or a
third party install the device, or getting a $50 gift card to help
pay for a new, regularly priced stove from Sears if they don't want
the anti-tip device.
"The whole idea is to solve the problem," Stephen Tillery, a
St. Louis lawyer involved in the lawsuit, told the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch for a story Wednesday.
Messages left Wednesday with Tillery by the AP were not
immediately returned.
The lawyers will split $17 million in fees, according to the
settlement.
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On the Net:
Sears, http://www.sears.com
