Defective Appliance: Faulty Fire Results in Catastrophe
Floresville, Texas: On or about March 4, 2006, a blazing fire burned a sleeping family to death in their mobile home in the middle of the night. Pablo Alfredo Arocha managed to save his oldest son, Esteban Alexander Arocha, and escape the fire. His wife, Christina Martinez Arocha and their two younger sons, Jonathan Daniel Arocha and Nicholas Anthony Arocha, burned to death in the fire.
The source of the fire was found to be a Kenmore chest freezer or a GE microwave oven.
Wigington Rumley Dunn & Blair, L.L.P. filed suit contending negligence against Floresville Electric Light and Power System, constituting a proximate cause of Plaintiff Pablo Alfredo Arocha’s and Minor Plaintiff Esteban Alexander Arocha’s life-threatening injuries, and of the fatal injuries to Plaintiff Christina Martinez Arocha and Minor Plaintiffs Nicholas Anthony Arocha and Jonathan Daniel Arocha.
Wigington Rumley Dunn & Blair, L.L.P. filed suit also contending negligence against Sears Roebuck and Co. Sears misrepresented the character and quality of the freezer. The misrepresentations were of such a nature as to render Sears strictly liable for the injuries to Plaintiffs.
The suit also claimed the microwave was defective in design and unreasonably dangerous, in that manufacturing and design defects existed in the microwave which such defective and unreasonably dangerous condition was a producing cause of the fire in question and the resulting injuries to Plaintiffs, the excruciating physical pain and mental anguish they suffered, the deaths of Plaintiff Christina Martinez Arocha and Minor Plaintiffs Jonathan Daniel Arocha and Nicholas Anthony Arocha, and of the damages suffered by Plaintiffs. This case settled for a confidential sum.