Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

December 4, 2014

Penn. Supreme Court overturns verdict against Middletown manufacturer

Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned a 2010 jury verdict against Middletown’s Omega Flex Inc., which found that the company’s gas piping was to blame for a lightning-related fire at a Pennsylvania home.

The state’s Supreme Court overruled its own decision from a 1978 product liability case, upon which the plaintiffs, aided by their insurer, had based part of their argument. The decision sends the case back to the state’s trial court.

It’s the fourth victory for the manufacturer since July 2013. It won a U.S. District Court jury trial decision in September related to a 2009 Trumbull house fire.

Omega Flex said Pennsylvania’s law was unique in that it allowed product liability cases to proceed without proving the product in question was “unreasonably dangerous.”

That allowed a lower-court jury in 2010 to award a $959,000 verdict to the homeowners, despite also finding that the design of Omega Flex’s TracPipe product was not negligent. A trial court denied a motion for a new trial in 2011, adding $69,000 in delay damages. A superior court judge upheld the ruling in 2012.

The homeowners sued after a 2007 lightning strike led to a fire, which they said punctured the wall of Omega Flex’s piping, which is 10 times thinner than black iron pipe, and ignited the natural gas.

The company’s attorney argued that the lightning strike didn’t have sufficient energy to puncture the wall, but that it damaged electrical wires, causing the fire. The defense also said that it was impossible to prove the homeowner’s theory, because evidence had been moved.

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

0 Comments

Order a PDF