State Farm Fire & Casualty v. Pentair Flow Technologies, LLC

Background

State Farm, acting as Miriam Perez’s insurer and subrogee, sued Pentair over a July 15, 2020 house fire. The fire allegedly began after Shanti Mann used a Simer Submersible Utility Pump, 2300-4, to remove water from Perez’s basement. Mann testified that the lights dimmed, he heard popping, sparks came from the pump as he unplugged it, and clothing caught fire. State Farm paid Perez $285,949.34 under the insurance policy and sought that amount from Pentair, which designed and manufactured the pump.

State Farm asserted negligence, strict products liability, breach of warranty, and re ipsa loquitur claims. Pentair moved for summary judgment, which asks the court to enter judgment without a trial when no genuine dispute over an important fact requires a jury’s decision.

Claims Dismissed as Abandoned

The court held that State Farm abandoned its breach-of-warranty and re ipsa loquitur claims by failing to respond to Pentair’s arguments seeking their dismissal. The court therefore dismissed the claims for breach of express and implied warranties and re ipsa loquitur.

The court also held that State Farm abandoned its theories that the pump had a defective design or inadequate warnings because State Farm did not address Pentair’s arguments concerning those theories. The court dismissed the negligence and strict-products-liability claims to the extent they were based on defective design or failure to warn.

Manufacturing-Defect Claims

The remaining claims were negligence and strict products liability based on a manufacturing defect. Under the legal standard applied by the court, State Farm had to show that the pump was defective and that the defect substantially contributed to the fire. For a manufacturing-defect claim based on circumstantial evidence, State Farm had to show that the incident was the type that ordinarily occurs because of a product defect and that other causes were not responsible.

The court concluded that a household utility pump catching fire during ordinary consumer use was the type of unusual event that ordinarily does not occur without a product defect. Mann’s testimony described the pump’s apparent electrical problems and the fire that followed. State Farm’s experts also provided evidence connecting an electrical event in the pump to the fire.

Pentair argued that State Farm’s experts had not identified a specific manufacturing defect and had not excluded other possible causes. The court rejected summary judgment because Pentair had not offered evidence establishing an alternative cause of the fire. The court said that Pentair’s experts either described the cause as undetermined or testified that the pump could have caused the fire; they did not identify a supported alternative cause. The court also stated that disputes about Mann’s credibility and the weight of the evidence were matters for a jury, not for resolution on summary judgment.

Ruling

The court granted in part and denied in part Pentair’s motion for summary judgment. It dismissed all of State Farm’s claims except the negligence and strict-products-liability claims based on a manufacturing defect. The court did not decide whether Pentair was ultimately liable. Instead, it found that those remaining claims presented a factual issue for trial and directed the parties to appear for a telephonic pretrial conference.