Mother wins £1m payout after her face is torn off by exploding cream canister
A WOMAN whose skull was cracked and face partially torn off by an exploding whipped cream canister has been awarded €1.1 million (£992,000) by a French court.
The case comes just months after a French lifestyle blogger died in an inci- dent involving a whipped cream canister made by the same manufacturer.
A court in Montauban has ruled that Emilie Lada deserved the payout after the accident in 2013 left her with permanent disabilities, including memory failure and the loss of her senses of taste and smell.
Mrs Lada, then 30, was preparing a mousse at her home when the cream canister she was holding exploded and the plastic lid shot into her face.
She was taken to hospital with lifethreatening injuries and, while medical teams were able to reconstruct her face, she was left with permanent disabilities. These disabilities were sufficiently severe to warrant the seven-figure payout from the importer of the canister, F2J, and its insurance provider, AXA, the court ruled.
There have been around 60 serious incidents involving exploding whipped cream canisters since 2013, Mrs Lada’s lawyer said. Several of these have involved the same canister Mrs Lada was using, but there have also been incidents involving other brands.
France’s National Consumer Institute (the INC) has warned the public that such canisters are dangerous.
Mrs Lada’s lawyer, Emilie Petitgirard, said the unusually high payout was “for a life snatched away”. She said: “It’s satisfying that all of the victim’s injuries were taken into account and compensated for fairly. While the amount of compensation may seem like a lot, it reflects the extreme injuries that my client has suffered.”
She added that the fact that another woman died four years later from the same product by the same brand was “scandalous inefficiency”.
“It shows that it was a totally ineffective recall campaign,” she said.
The canister was recalled by the manufacturer in March 2013. It is marketed under the brand name Ard’time, but only the importer and the insurance provider were ordered to pay.
They were also told to pay €10,000 (£9,000) to her husband and two children, who witnessed the accident.
Insurance provider AXA has appealed against the court’s ruling.
Rebecca Burger a French blogger and Instagram star, died in June after a similar whipped cream canister exploded. The 32-year-old suffered a cardiac arrest after a piece of the exploding device hit her in the chest.