Seyfarth Shaw's Litigation Team Secures Victory for Alkar-RapidPak, Inc.

After a two-week jury trial in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, Seyfarth Shaw Chicago Litigation attorneys Shawn Wood and Justin K. Beyer won a complete defense verdict for oven manufacturer Alkar-RapidPak, Inc. (Alkar). Plaintiff Advance Brands LLC sued Alkar for $8.3 million, arising out of a fire and explosion at its food processing facility. While the plaintiff sought to attribute the fire to an alleged design defect in the oven, Wood and Beyer established that the cause of the incident was product misuse and a series of lockout/tagout errors on the part of the Advance Brands' employees.

After only one hour of deliberation, the jury found in favor of Alkar and against the plaintiff on every claim and issue, including (a) that there was no design defect in the oven; (b) that Alkar was not liable for failure to warn; (c) that Alkar was not liable for breach of implied warranties; (d) that Alkar's oven was state of the art; and (e) that the plaintiff was 100 percent at fault and responsible for causing its own damages.