Erie Insurance vs. AquaLogic

I had the pleasure of serving on a jury in Fairfax County district court on April 14/15 2008 in the case of Erie Insurance vs. AquaLogic, Inc. It related to a fire which occurred at a residence in Ashburn, VA in September 2004.

The plaintiff (Erie) alleged that the fire was caused by a faulty reef (fish) tank water chiller manufactured by the defendant. They further alleged that if other unsafe conditions existed, and caused the fire, they should have been warned about in the operations manual. The defense provided an alternate theory that salt creep, possibly caused by improper ventilation of the aquarium installation and components, caused a short across the plug face of the chiller, which caused the fire.

We were asked to rule in favor of the plaintiff if

• the defendant was negligent, meaning:
• they produced an unsafe product
• their manuals fail to provide adequate warning of potentially dangerous conditions
• the product violates any implied or explicit warranties
• AND the defendant's negligence was a proximate cause of the fire

The most important point to the jury was that multiple theories as to the cause of the fire were presented, and nobody was convinced of an absolute cause. Both sides produced a believable expert witness who was quite certain of their own theory as to the cause of the fire. We couldn't discern that one was any more an expert than another. Without knowing what the cause of the fire was, it is then impossible to know that the defendant's negligence caused the fire.

Even placing that aside, we all had doubts about all three possibilities of the defendant's negligence. None of the jurors thought the defendant produced an unsafe product, or a product which violated any warranties. Two of the seven jurors thought that the manuals should perhaps include warnings about salt creep and the fact that water and electricity don't mix. If we had decided to deliberate this further I'm confident all seven would have also agreed that the missing things in the manuals were "obvious" and/or "readily discoverable" and therefore did not result in negligence on the part of the defendant.

Overall I was very pleased to have been selected and to have participated in this great civic duty. It was an interesting experience and I would do it again, although things would get dicey if I was asked to serve on a trial that would take longer than this one - two full days.