A two-year-old girl sustained serious burn injuries when a pot of hot soup spilled on her. The child lived in an apartment building in an inner city neighborhood, and the landlord of the building had refused to provide heat to the building. As a result, the child’s mother was required to heat her apartment by turning on the stove and keeping the door open. As a result, the child, who was attracted by the heat radiating from the stove, bumped into the stove (which was unstable), which caused a pot of boiling soup on the stove to spill and burn her. The child suffered first-degree burns and later died from her injuries.

The Scanlan Law Group filed a negligence action against the landlord and building management company, contending that the landlord’s failure to heat the apartment caused the mother to use the oven to heat her apartment, which in turn led to the child’s injuries and subsequent death. The defendants apparently agreed with Scanlan’s theory of the case, as they settled the case for $450,000.

“This case is just another tragic example of how much harm slum landlords can cause. They fail to maintain their buildings, allow dangerous conditions to develop, and then, when they cause injury, they try to hide behind complicated legal structures and land trusts to avoid liability,” said Scanlan. “When I get a case like this, I do whatever it takes to unwind these legal fictions and bring these landlords to justice.”