October 30, 2009

Injured 11-year old Boy Takes on Coleman

Trevor Dennis was once a normal, happy 8-year old boy. But a horrific incident almost 4 years ago turned his world upside down.

While on a camping holiday with his parents at the Octillo Wells Desert Recreation area on December 30th, 2005, young Trevor retired into their camper that was being heated by a Model 5053 ProCat™ PerfecTemp™ Coleman propane heater propane heater manufactured by the Coleman Company. At about 11pm, the heater malfunctioned causing the camper to catch fire with Trevor still inside. The camper was extensively destroyed and Trevor was severely burnt.

Trevor's mother Alysha Reed has to work 24/7/365 to finance Trevor's extensive ongoing medical expenses and special needs. But Coleman would not admit liability despite the fact that they were aware of the inherent fault in their product having received numerous past complaints and warranty claims on it and knew of earlier incidences of fire. In fact, the company continues business as usual, selling more units of their propane heater. And to add salt to the wound of those like Trevor and others who have had bad experiences with the propane heater, Coleman advertises their product with words like, flameless warmth outdoors or in places like a tent or home at the top of the box and photos of it working indoors.

The fact in Trevor Dennis case was that the propane heater, with a faulty design using sub-standard critical parts from China, poor assembly and insufficient quality control, caught fire due to a gas leak within the heater itself, specifically due to diaphragm failure. Trevor's family asserts that the plastic casing and parts of the heater are easily flammable at low temperatures, making it a risk to its own excessive heat production.

The Coleman company has denied all of this and maintain that their product is not defective in any way. This has prompted the Dennis family to appoint the legal firm Bisnar and Chase to take up a lawsuit against Coleman. They are seeking compensation for pain and suffering, past and current medical costs and loss of earnings in adult life for Trevor. The family is also concerned that such an accident will happen in future to other children due to a similar heater. Hence, they also seek exemplary damages for Coleman's alleged conscious disregard of their bad experiences and that of other users.

A California Supreme Court will hear the defective product case (30-2007 00100173) on Monday, November 2nd. The hearing of pretrial issues has already begun.