A 65-year old Nevada woman who was set on fire in her bed by a defective heating pad after she had fallen asleep has recovered a $200,000 settlement from Walgreens, which sold her the pad.
The heating pad caught on fire, destroyed plaintiff Evelyn Bowen's bed and resulted in a third-degree burn on her buttocks. She had roughly $80,000 in medical expenses.
Plaintiff attorney Kyle Stucki of Las Vegas, NV, settled the case on October 1, 2014. He is a member of The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Lawyers. Bowen v. Walgreens, et al., Case Number: 2:14-CV-246-MMD-VCF, US District Court, District of Nevada.
The heating pad had a manufacturing and design defect, making it incapable of regulating its heat, which reached temperatures nearly double the recommended level. The Walgreens heating pad, manufactured by Sunbeam and Jarden Corporation, allowed the heat sensor coil to become severed. The sensor coil measures the temperature and relays the information to the handheld controller which increases or decreases the temperature.
The incident happened on January 1, 2012 around 2 AM. Bowne tried to stay awake to watch the New Years' fireworks but fell asleep. She used a heating pad because at 17 years old, she was in a massive car accident that broke all five lumbar vertebrae. Also, she has experienced adjacent segmental disruption so she has eight levels fused altogether. She relied on heating pads to give her relief but is now too afraid to use them since the incident.
