The Subrogation Strategist

In State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. a/s/o Miriam Perez v. Pentair Flow Techs., LLC No. 7:21-CV-6679, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36875, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (District Court) reconsidered whether the plaintiff established sufficient circumstantial evidence to move forward with its product liability claim against the defendant. The District Court, again, denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment, finding that the circumstantial evidence presented by the plaintiff satisfied the two-prong test for establishing products liability through a circumstantial approach. 

The plaintiff, State Farm Fire & Casualty Company (Insurer), brought this subrogation action after its insured, Miriam Perez (Perez), sustained a fire loss at her home. The fire originated in the area of a Simer Submersible Utility Pump in the basement of the home. Perez made a claim to the Insurer, who investigated the origin and cause of the fire. After paying Perez over $285,000 for the damage, the Insurer filed a subrogation lawsuit against the defendant, the designer and manufacturer of the utility pump. The Insurer asserted a claim under New York’s strict product liability law. The Insurer relied on statements from witnesses of the pump emitting sparks, and evidence of arcing within the pump in support of its product defect claim. The defendant removed the case to federal court, and after extensive discovery, filed a motion for summary judgment. 

The court acknowledged that, under New York law, a party may prove and plead a manufacturing flaw through circumstantial evidence if it can show that the injury was: 1) a kind that ordinarily occurs as a result of a product defect, and 2) not solely the result of causes other than a product defect. The defendant argued that a utility pump starting a fire was not the type of injury that ordinarily occurs as a result of a product defect. The court disagreed, citing several New York cases where other household appliances, including a refrigerator and a boiler, that caught fire were found to satisfy the first prong. The court likened the circumstantial evidence approach to res ipsa loquitor, where an event is of a kind that ordinarily does not occur in the absence of negligence and other potential causes are ruled out.

The defendant also argued that the plaintiff failed to satisfy the second prong because it did not exclude all other causes of the accident not attributable to the product. The court clarified that once the plaintiff satisfies the first prong, the burden shifts to the defendant to propose an alternative explanation for the harm that does not implicate a product defect. The court held that the plaintiff is not required to exclude all other causes until the defendant satisfies this burden. Since the defendant failed to offer such evidence, the District Court denied the motion for reconsideration.   

The Perez case establishes that the circumstantial evidence approach for product liability claims is alive and well in New York. This holding reminds us that, in New York, a plaintiff can establish a product defect even if the physical evidence does not directly support a defect. If a plaintiff can satisfy the two-prongs of the circumstantial approach, then the plaintiff may be able to overcome a dispositive motion and get the case to the trier of fact. A subrogation professional handling a product defect claim in New York should be mindful of the Perez ruling when considering whether to proceed with the claim.