you know one of the most
significant cases i’ve ever been
involved in
was
due to a horrific house fire that
occurred two sisters
were visiting one lived in the home
and one was visiting they both had
young children
six between them
it was winter and so it was cold
and there was a device
a a heater
air conditioner combination device
well
it was wired into the wall and the
device that was used to wire it into the
wall was defective
as a result it created
this intense heating where the
electrical current was going through the
device and because the device was
defectively manufactured and defectively
designed
it melted
and caught the couch on fire that was
in front of it
the home went up in flames
one of the sisters was asleep on on the
couch this was in the middle of the
night one of the sleep sisters was
asleep on the couch in the living room
and was woken up by the smoke and she
got up and told her sister who woke up
the other young children in the house
they two six-year-old twins
and 11 and
12 year olds
the twins got up and ran towards the
front of the house and
one of the sisters opened the front door
so they could get out and by doing that
she unwittingly let air in that fueled
the fire the living room exploded in the
flames
both twins were horribly burned
one
survived
72 days before he died
his twin sister was burned on 40 percent
of her body
two of their other
siblings
hidden closets and died from smoke
inhalation the device
was
a surface mounted electrical outlet
and for years had been made by a small
electrical equipment company in new york
city
where they paid a living wage to the
workers to make that device
well a larger electrical supply company
bought that small company in new york
and decided they were going to make this
product
less expensively so they fired everybody
in new york they moved the manufacturing
to mexico city
they hired lower wage employees they
used a lower grade plastic material they
eliminated the quality control steps to
ensure that the product was made
correctly and the reason i know all of
that is because i actually went to
mexico city and inspected the
manufacturing process i watched what
they did and how they did it
and learned that they were substituting
in
a cheaper plastic material with a lower
burn threshold had the material that was
used by the original company been used
to manufacture this device it never
would have melted even with
the
electrical current that was going
through it think of putting your thumb
over a yar a garden hose and how you can
make the water spray well that’s what
was happening to the electrical current
going through this device and so it was
heating up if the plastic had had a
higher burn threshold it wouldn’t have
caught on fire
and that fire wouldn’t have happened
you know that case resolved very
successfully for nearly 30 million
dollars and it should have
and the two sisters
who lost these children
were among the most remarkable clients
i’ve ever represented they were
both young women of faith
and
despite this unimaginable loss that they
sustained
they managed to
find the strength to go on with their
lives to to care for the children who
did survive
and to to rebuild their lives and to
continue to have
faith
and to be very loving people and they
still to this day are among
the most
cherished clients i’ve ever represented
