Legal & Courts  May 29, 2020

Insurer sues over allegedly faulty refrigerator parts at Patina Flats

LOVELAND — Tokio Marine Kiln Syndicates Ltd., a London-based foreign surplus lines insurance company, is suing a group of refrigerator component makers and distributors, alleging that the firms sold faulty appliances that were installed in the Patina Flats at the Foundry apartment development in Loveland. 

Foreign surplus lines insurance companies often insure riskier assets than traditional insurance companies. Tokio Marine Kiln provided insurance to developer Brinkman Construction for aspects of the Patina Flats project. Brinkman is not a party to the suit. 

According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, Delaware-based Electrolux Home Products Inc. and South Korean firms Useong Electro Mechanics Co. Ltd. and Useong International Ltd. supplied Brinkman with “refrigerators with solenoid valves which controlled the supply of water to the icemakers in the refrigerators.”

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The appliance “is designed so when the icemaker is in the ‘off’ position, the solenoid valve is closed and water is not allowed to flow through the valve to the icemaker,” the complaint said.

However, those valves were allegedly faulty and featured a fractured spring that “allowed the valve to stay open and water to run through it to the icemaker even though the icemaker was in the ‘off’ position,’” according to court documents.

In late 2018, a leak occurred that is alleged to have started inside a refrigerator, the complaint said. “The water flowing from the refrigerator leaked into multiple units causing significant damage to the units and throughout the Patina Flats building.”

Brinkman filed an insurance claim, the value of which was not disclosed, and Tokio Marine paid it out. Now the insurer is going after the manufacturer and distributors in court.

The complaint alleges that the defendants, who could not be reached for comment, “knew or reasonably should have known that the plaintiff’s insured would not realize the refrigerator was defective and posed a danger of causing substantial property damage.

“The subject refrigerator and component parts sold by defendants were sold in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer or to his/her/its property in that the refrigerator and the solenoid valve that failed were not properly designed, manufactured, or assembled, nor did they contain sufficient and adequate warnings and instructions as to the risks and hazards of a failure and water damage in the event of a malfunction or defect, or anticipated use.”

The complaint demands unspecified damages. 

 

LOVELAND — Tokio Marine Kiln Syndicates Ltd., a London-based foreign surplus lines insurance company, is suing a group of refrigerator component makers and distributors, alleging that the firms sold faulty appliances that were installed in the Patina Flats at the Foundry apartment development in Loveland. 

Foreign surplus lines insurance companies often insure riskier assets than traditional insurance companies. Tokio Marine Kiln provided insurance to developer Brinkman Construction for aspects of the Patina Flats project. Brinkman is not a party to the suit. 

According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, Delaware-based Electrolux Home…

Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood is editor and publisher of BizWest, a regional business journal covering Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer and Weld counties. Wood co-founded the Northern Colorado Business Report in 1995 and served as publisher of the Boulder County Business Report until the two publications were merged to form BizWest in 2014. From 1990 to 1995, Wood served as reporter and managing editor of the Denver Business Journal. He is a Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder. He has won numerous awards from the Colorado Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and the Alliance of Area Business Publishers.
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