Vacuum Cleaner Manufacturer Lawsuits

eurekaprince

eurekaprince

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Reading all the cautionary warnings in vacuum cleaner instruction manuals, I have always wondered which warnings were the result of some injury that caused a lawsuit. You read warnings such as: electric shock could occur if used on wet surfaces, or keep hair away from spinning brush rolls, or do not let young children operate cleaner, or always unplug cleaner before changing bag or belt.

Then there are the copyright lawsuits like the one Dyson served on Hoover UK for introducing a similar cyclonic bagless upright. See link below.

Feel free to post an interesting, devastating or eye-opening lawsuit related to vacuums in this thread…

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/dyson-sues-hoover-for-infringing-his-patent-706709.html
 
There's several

One that pops my mind the most was when Hoover sued Bissell for copying their Elite and SteamVac which Bissell had to pay the fine.
 
Dyson sued Amway/Bissell over their blatant rip off of his patents.
Filter Queen sued Lewyt for the blatant rip off of their patents.
Air-Way sued Hoover for the rip off of their patent on the bag.
Hoover sued Air-Way over their rip off of the beater bar
Hoover sued Western Electric for their rip off of the motor-driven-brush.
 
I think it was 1961 or 1962 that Lewyt Corporation got sued for the Lewyt Big Wheel electrocuting people when the wiring in the motor to power the Power Head failed. That's what caused the company to go bankrupt and be sold to SCM Smith Corona Marchand.
 
Oh yes…that Lewyt lawsuit is quite important. I wonder if the user that was injured died.

Something must have happened to cause all Eureka vacuums to have the following warning clearly displayed on all their hose handles: “Electric shock could occur if used outdoors or on wet surfaces.”
 
Most vacuum cleaner defects in manufacturing are usually harmless annoyances and inconveniences that lead to mass recalls, and very rarely do they cause injury. For a vacuum cleaner company to escalate to a lawsuit, it usually has to be EXTREMELY serious, to where the victim has felt that monetary compensation or a coupon for a new vacuum is not good enough and they want legal action taken against the company for their wrongdoing.

The only serious one I knew of was the case with Lewt that KirbyLux mentioned, he beat me to the punch at bringing that one up. I don't really know of any other cases so serious. There have been a lot of cases in modern days where rechargeable vacuums have overheated and blown up.
 
I'm unsure if it brought about any lawsuits, but the Aerus/Electrolux ponytail cord on upright vacuums it produced from 1991 to 1993 did result in some injuries, and Aerus agreed to pay a civil penalty of $250K in 2002 to avoid incurring more legal fees but denying that it violated Consumer Safety Protection Agency rules or was negligent in any way. It stated that it had voluntarily recalled the cleaners in late 1998 after receiving complaints.

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Re: Reply #9

"Something must have happened to cause all Eureka vacuums to have the following warning clearly displayed on all their hose handles: 'Electric shock could occur if used outdoors or on wet surfaces.'”

Hey Brian,

I did some recollecting and researching on the matter. Eureka wasn't the only surface care electrical appliance company to do this—likely beginning around 1974 when AB Electrolux took the reigns (the photo of the attached owners guide lists The Eureka Company). Electrolux Corporation added a warning to its 1972 owners' manual and began affixing bright yellow labels on the bag doors of its tank vacuums. In 1974, the rocker switches of the 50th Jubilee Model 1205s and the switch plates of the Model Ls were first stamped with the warnings, too. In addition, the earliest messaging of a couple other companies I found were a 1975 Hoover Convertible instructions book that contained VCMA Consumer Information with the caution and the Kirby Classic III's 1976 warranty and instruction book containing safeguards. The Underwriters Laboratories also began producing a free leaflet in the early '70s titled "STOP—Before Using Your Vacuum Cleaner" recommended in a newspaper column to someone seeking advice about vacuuming indoor/outdoor carpeting. Prior to that time I found no such messaging in the literature of the companies mentioned but did not look for Hoover and Kirby warnings on the cleaners themselves to determine when/if that was put into practice.

A couple potential instances for getting shocked while vacuuming are damp indoor/outdoor carpeting and damp carpets and rugs after shampooing. The rising popularity of carpeted patios and indoor wall-to-wall carpeting in the 1960s must have spiked the number of reported accidents resulting in increased safety measures by the industry and UL.

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Lewyt

I was also going to mention the Lewyt lawsuit. I'm not sure if anyone was actually killed from that but it was certainly possible. My nickname for that vacuum is the Zapper. I would say Lewyt blew it. I've often wondered how that design flaw was not discovered during development. Perhaps designs were not tested as much back then? I think it would only happen if the bag got too full which would cause the motor to get hotter than it should. If Lewyt had stuck with their first power nozzle design that would have never happened.
Mike
 
From what I understand, the power head or the vacuum was not grounded (much like mostly everything back then). So over time the wiring rubbed onto the nozzle connector or something, and energized it. You could just be going along vacuuming and then you get a full 120v current into your hands, which may or may not be sweaty, exacerbating the electrocution effect. I mean maybe if you were older or more susceptible to electrocution (bad heart) it could kill you but maybe someone younger or more fit might be able to survive it. Who knows, electricity is totally random.

My house has a weird quirk like that. If I am in bare feet and I stand on the air vent register grille, and then touch the wall plate screw for the ceiling fan, I got electrocuted really hard. It left a small red irritation in my skin the pattern of the screw. A few years later I took the switch apart and found out whoever put it in and changed it, used long drywall screws to secure the socket in the kitchen and the longer screws went through the wall and into the back of the switch wires just ever so tiny of a poke, making them live.
 
Huskyvacs - The way the Lewyt Big Wheel supplied power to the powerhead, there was a 12 volt rectifier on the side of the motor's field wires. Over time, after the vacuum overheated a few times, the varnish on the field wires would wear off. This would cause the rectifier to malfunction and send 120 volts through the hose, wand and into the powerhead - NOT 12 volts as it was supposed to. In addition, there was NOT a traditional powerhead cord that plugs into a electric hose or hose cord - the hose handle and wands were copper coated, and the power was transmitted through the hose handle and wands into the powerhead and thus energized.

This is why people were electrocuted by the vacuum while holding the hose handle or wands as they were using the vacuum. From what I understand, the person also had to be grounded at the time as well, by touching a metal surface.

The ironic part is, though, this would have NEVER HAPPENED if they had stuck with their previous design - a external power cord clipped to the hose and wand, which had a normal electrical wall plug and a receptacle on the canister. Yes, Mr Lewyt was probably thinking that having no power cord for the powerhead would be more convenient for consumers, as there would be no cord to unclip and remove to use tools - but if he had made two separate cords, one for the powerhead and a hose cord with a receptacle on the hose handle end, the vacuum would have been just as convenient to use without any possible electrocution hazard.
 
The ironic thing about the Electrolux ponytail cord design is the electric shocks that occurred were at least partly the result of consumer negligence. The cord being attached at the end of the handle proved to be something of an attractive nuisance in that some users would let go of the handle when pushing the vacuum away and then pull it back by the cord, eventually causing damage--and electric shocks--where it connected to the handle.

The recall remedy involved replacing the entire handle, switch, and cord assembly. I had this done to my Genesis LXe and almost instantly regretted it because the handle was the wrong color for the machine and its rocker style switch was defective. I eventually replaced that switch with a red one from a Shark upright, which was a perfect fit, once I touched the hole in the handle to remove about a millimeter or so of material. The important thing is it now works as it should.
 
Another Lewyt Lawsuit

Before the Zapper lawsuits ( 7 fatalities if my memory is correct ) Lewyt had model that preceded the Big Wheel series that was a pretty blatant Filter Queen copy that earned them a nice lawsuit by Filter Queen.
Whirlpool had several lawsuits in the latter part of the 1980s for electric hoses that caught fire. Probably why they got out of the vacuum biz.
 

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