Will it blend? No, it won't, Hyde Park woman charges in blender suit
A Hyde Park woman and other purchasers of expensive Blendtec blenders say that far from being marble-crushing, skeleton-destroying marvels of modern engineering, the gizmos are actually pretty fragile contrivances that quickly fall apart, leaking their contents and belching smoke and spitting "deteriorated rubber, silicone, and/or plastic" into whatever they're blending before they stop working completely.
In their suit, filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston, Shelly Isaac of Hyde Park and two West Coast residents hope to be designated as lead plaintiffs in a class-action suit against Blendtec, Inc. of Orem, Utah.
The three say the problem is not the motor in the base of the blenders, but the proprietary "jars" that Blendtech sells that contain the blades and mechanism that moves the power to make the blades whirl through what consumers put in them to blend.
The Defect results from the use of wholly inadequate and incompatible materials used in the Jar's Blade Assembly.
Specifically, the Jar utilizes an inadequate, weak and ineffective seal in its Blade Assembly which causes the Jar's seal to degrade, leak, and ultimately fail.
The Jar's ball bearing and its lubricant are likewise inadequate and incompatible for use in the Blender, causing premature deterioration of the bearing.
When the seal fails, liquid leaks into the ball bearing, which causes further degradation of the plastic and lubricant surrounding the bearing.
The Defect manifests in a variety of ways which are easily observed by the consumer. When the seal fails, the Jar leaks its contents from the bottom of the Jar and into the base's drive socket. Once the ball bearing fails, consumers may observe the degraded pieces of the bearing and/or the seal in the Jar, in addition to smoke, loud grinding noises, vibration and eventual failure of the Blade Assembly.
Upon information and belief, this Defect is a safety hazard to the consumers who have purchased the Blenders, as they are at risk of ingesting deteriorated rubber, silicone, and/or plastic through food and beverages blended in the Jars.
The suit charges the company has known about the problem for seven years and has done nothing about it. Consumers who complain are sent new "jars" with the same defect, it alleges.
Isaac says that on May 8, 2017, she used a Groupon coupon to buy a Blendtec Classic 570 Blender with a WildSide+ Jar for $229,99, down from the usual retail proces of $399.95.
Within the first year of owning the Blender, Plaintiff Isaac used it occasionally. However, even despite her infrequent use, the Blender began to make a loud grinding noise when used according to the manual's instructions.
Plaintiff Isaac reached out to Blendtec by phone in summer of 2018, and Blendtec asked Plaintiff to run the Blender so that they could troubleshoot the issue by phone. After diagnosing the Blender as defective, Blendtec replaced Plaintiff Isaac's Blender with an upgraded, refurbished Classic 575 model with a WildSide+ Jar.
Despite replacing both the base and the Jar, in 2020, less than two years later Plaintiff Isaac's Blender once again began to make a loud grinding noise during normal use. 83. Due to this malfunction, Plaintiff Isaac was concerned that her Blender would fail entirely with continued use, and therefore has discontinued using her Blender.
If Plaintiff Isaac had been aware that the Jar contained a Defect that would cause it to make a loud, grinding noise during use, she would not have purchased the Blender. Therefore, she did not receive the benefit of her bargain.
Despite their problems, the three initial plaintiffs say they would still buy another Blendtech blender - if they could be assured the problems are fixed, which they hope to force by getting a jury to award them and other purchases and their lawyers damages and penalties for the alleged violations of their warranties and contracts and their rights under the consumer-protection laws of Massachusetts, California and Washington state.
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Comments
I shock anyone would buy this
I shock anyone would buy this.
A class action suit seems debatable
OK, so they are selling a shoddy product and will send you a new jar when yours eventually breaks. I've bought plenty of crappy items before, but I never felt like I needed to sue. Let the buyer beware.
What if by suing
you could ensure there were fewer crappy products in the future?
This isn't just about making people whole, it's about punishment for bad behavior.
All lawsuits are debatable
That's why there are civil courts. As for this case, if I had paid $300 for a food-preparation product that was this badly engineered, to the point that it put broken bits of machinery into my food, and the company's response was to replace it with the same badly-engineered piece of junk, I would consider suing, too. Especially if I learned that he company knew it was selling an overpriced piece of junk, and had known it for years.
Of course, it's unlikely that I would buy such a thing, because I use Consumer Reports to find what products are actually worth having.
could be worse
if the blender had been made in America. They got lucky.
j/k, we know America will never make anything ever again.
Big "As Seen on TV" energy in this ad. Most people
buy this kind of shoddy junk once and learn their lesson.
damages and penalties
In other words, we want a big pile of cash for no good reason. Sad.
This type of dubious lawsuit is precisely why we need
a requirement that, should the plaintiff in a civil lawsuit lose the case, they are responsible for paying defendant's costs and damages to them.
Lots of corporate simps in
Lots of corporate simps in these comments. The company sells a product they know is shitty, provides a bunch of false advertisement about how good it is, some normal human beings say "hey, that's not right, stop it" and the company is like, fuck you. So those people then turn to the only system of recompense left in our hellscape country and it's a "frivolous lawsuit"? Maybe this company shouldn't sell shit they know is broken??
So many people bitch and moan that things aren't built like they're used to and are designed to fail the day after the warrantee's up and cheap chinese crap etc etc etc but nobody is willing to support steps to.... stop this nonsense?