Jury Returns Defense Verdict in Commercial Kitchen Fire Case

A Missouri jury returned a defense verdict for Shook, Hardy & Bacon's client in a commercial kitchen fire case seeking nearly $3 million in damages. The plaintiff alleged that despite semi-annual inspections, the manufacturer of the fire suppression system failed to notice the location of a fusible link, which purportedly allowed the fire to escape into the building's duct work. We argued that the fire quickly spread into the duct work before the fusible link had time to respond and, regardless, the suppression system would not have been able to extinguish the fire given the amount of grease and other combustible material in the duct.