Household Appliance Fires in Georgia: Manufacturing Defects and Product Liability

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When a household appliance catches fire and burns a home or the people in it, the evidence of how the fire started may come less from an eyewitness than from what the fire leaves behind, since a refrigerator runs around the clock and a dryer or dishwasher may be left running while no one is in the room. The claim then depends on what the manufacturer is liable for under Georgia’s product-liability statute, on what happens if the burned appliance is lost, and on which of several clocks ends the claim first. Georgia sets different periods for injury to a person and for damage to a house or its contents, and adds a ten-year repose period measured from the appliance’s first sale.

What Georgia’s Product-Liability Statute Covers

OCGA 51-1-11(b)(1) makes “[t]he manufacturer of any personal property sold as new property directly or through a dealer or any other person” liable in tort, “irrespective of privity, to any natural person who may use, consume, or reasonably be affected by the property and who suffers injury to his person or property because the property when sold by the manufacturer was not merchantable and reasonably suited to the use intended, and its condition when sold is the proximate cause of the injury sustained.” The statute names injury to “his person or property,” so a destroyed house and its contents fall within its words as well as a burn injury.

Negligence claims run alongside the strict-liability action. The Supreme Court of Georgia has separated two negligence theories: one resting on the manufacturer’s duty to use reasonable care in manufacturing products that are reasonably safe for intended or foreseeable uses, and one resting on its duty to warn of a danger in using the product, which arises when the manufacturer knows or reasonably should know of that danger (Chrysler Corp. v. Batten, 264 Ga. 723 (1994)). What the manufacturer knew, and when, therefore bears on the warning claim, and evidence of what it knew also bears on the punitive-damages standard discussed below.

Proving Where the Fire Started and What Started It

Fire-origin and cause opinions, and the electrical or mechanical engineering opinions that tie a failure inside an appliance to the ignition, are expert testimony. Under OCGA 24-7-702(b), a qualified expert may give an opinion if the specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact and the testimony rests on sufficient facts or data, comes from reliable principles and methods, and applies those methods reliably to the facts of the case. The same statute governs an opposing expert’s opinion on an alternative cause. Each of those tests depends on what physical evidence survived, which is why preservation of the appliance matters.

The Appliance as Evidence: Preservation and Spoliation

In Phillips v. Harmon, 297 Ga. 386 (2015), the Supreme Court of Georgia used spoliation to mean destroying or failing to preserve evidence that bears on litigation already pending or in contemplation. The duty to preserve “is triggered not only when litigation is pending but when it is reasonably foreseeable to that party.” For the injured party, “usually the plaintiff, the duty arises when that party contemplates litigation.” For the opposing party, “usually the defendant, the duty arises when it knows or reasonably should know that the injured party, the plaintiff, is in fact contemplating litigation.” The court listed circumstances from which a defendant’s notice may be derived, among them “the type and extent of the injury,” “the extent to which fault for the injury is clear,” and “the potential financial exposure if faced with a finding of liability.”

The remedy has limits. By statute, when a party has evidence within reach and omits to produce it, “a presumption arises that the charge or claim against such party is well founded; but this presumption may be rebutted” (OCGA 24-14-22). Phillips noted, quoting Cotton States Fertilizer Co. v. Childs, 179 Ga. 23 (1934), that an instruction of that kind is given “only in exceptional cases” and that “the greatest caution must be exercised in its application,” and, citing the Court of Appeals, that the trial court considers both prejudice to the party seeking the charge and whether the party who destroyed the evidence acted in good or bad faith. A homeowner who discards a burned appliance after contemplating a claim is therefore in the position Phillips describes for an injured party, while a manufacturer’s duty depends on when it knows or reasonably should know that the injured party is contemplating litigation.

What Punitive Damages Require in a Product Case

Punitive damages require clear and convincing proof of willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression, or an entire want of care that raises a presumption of conscious indifference to consequences (OCGA 51-12-5.1(b)). In a case arising from product liability, the statute sets no cap on the amount of punitive damages, only one award may be recovered from a defendant for any act or omission, and 75 percent of any punitive amount, less a proportionate part of the costs of litigation including reasonable attorney’s fees, is paid into the state treasury (OCGA 51-12-5.1(e)).

Three Clocks: Injury, Property, and Repose

Georgia sets the filing period by what was harmed. Actions for injuries to the person must be brought within two years after the right of action accrues (OCGA 9-3-33). Actions for damage to realty and for injuries to personalty carry four years (OCGA 9-3-30(a); OCGA 9-3-31), as do actions to recover personal property or for damages for its destruction (OCGA 9-3-32). By the terms of those statutes, a fire that burns a house and its contents engages a four-year period for those losses and, for a burn injury, a two-year period for the person.

The repose period runs on a different clock. No strict-liability action may be commenced more than ten years after the first sale for use or consumption of the product that caused the injury (OCGA 51-1-11(b)(2)). Subsection (c) applies the same ten-year limit to negligence actions, except for negligence in manufacturing products that cause a disease or birth defect and for conduct showing a willful, reckless, or wanton disregard for life or property, and it keeps in place the manufacturer’s duty to warn of a danger once that danger becomes known to it (OCGA 51-1-11(c)). In Batten, the Supreme Court of Georgia read that last provision to take failure-to-warn claims outside the repose period; two justices dissented and would have applied an actual-knowledge standard.

For example, imagine an appliance first sold on August 1, 2019, and a fire on November 1, 2028. For a strict-liability action, the ten-year repose period under OCGA 51-1-11(b)(2) would end on August 1, 2029, nine months after the fire. Two years from the fire, for a burn injury, would end November 1, 2030, and four years, for the house and contents, would end November 1, 2032. In that example the repose period ends first, before either limitation period.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the store that sold the appliance be sued under the strict-liability statute?
Not as a manufacturer. In an action based in whole or in part on strict liability, a product seller, a term that covers a business that sells, installs, repairs, or maintains a product, is not a manufacturer under OCGA 51-1-11 and is not liable as one, and the statute leaves rights to indemnity or contribution untouched (OCGA 51-1-11.1(a)-(c)).

Can a disclaimer in the owner’s manual bar the claim?
Not the strict-liability claim. A manufacturer may not exclude or limit the operation of OCGA 51-1-11(b) (OCGA 51-1-11(b)(3)).

Can the claim be brought against appliance makers as a group?
No. A manufacturer cannot be held liable for a defective product on theories of market share or enterprise, or other theories of industry-wide liability (OCGA 51-1-11(d)), so the claim rests on the maker of the unit that burned.

Can the manufacturer blame the installer or a repair shop?
Fault can be assigned to anyone who contributed to the loss, even someone outside the suit (OCGA 51-12-33(c)), and a defendant that says a nonparty was wholly or partly at fault must give notice at least 120 days before trial (OCGA 51-12-33(d)(1)).

  • OCGA 51-1-11(b), (c), (d); OCGA 51-1-11.1(a)-(c)
  • Chrysler Corp. v. Batten, 264 Ga. 723, 450 S.E.2d 208 (1994)
  • OCGA 24-7-702(b); OCGA 24-14-22; Phillips v. Harmon, 297 Ga. 386, 774 S.E.2d 596 (2015); Cotton States Fertilizer Co. v. Childs, 179 Ga. 23 (1934) (as quoted in Phillips)
  • OCGA 51-12-5.1(b), (e)
  • OCGA 9-3-30(a); OCGA 9-3-31; OCGA 9-3-32; OCGA 9-3-33
  • OCGA 51-12-33(c), (d)(1)

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about appliance-fire and product-liability claims under Georgia law. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Whether a claim exists and which deadline applies depend on the specific facts, the age of the appliance, and what was harmed. A person with a potential claim should consult a licensed Georgia attorney about the particular situation.

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