When a Manufacturer Keeps No Records: Pursuing Justice After a Workplace Chemical Explosion Left Our Client Legally Blind
A defective foam machine exploded at a food processing facility in the City of Industry, causing catastrophic chemical burns and permanent blindness—and the manufacturer couldn’t produce a single design document for the product that caused it.
A Routine Setup Turned Catastrophic
On December, 2022, our client was doing something he’d done many times before: setting up a foam machine at the food processing facility where he worked as a sanitation worker in the City of Industry, California.
The machine—a hose drop station used to dispense cleaning chemicals—required connection to compressed air and water lines before operation. It was routine. It was something our client had been trained to do.
As he connected the lines, the plastic container holding caustic chemicals exploded. The force of the blast knocked our client to the ground, where he momentarily lost consciousness. Caustic chemicals covered his face, mouth, and eyes.
Our client was hospitalized for three days, requiring continuous eye irrigation and drainage tubes to flush the chemicals from his eyes. He underwent two corneal surgeries on his right eye, with additional surgery still planned. Despite medical intervention, the damage was permanent: our client’s right eye has no vision, and his left eye retains less than 20% function. He is now legally blind.
Light itself causes him pain. He must wear dark sunglasses at all times. The chemical burns left lasting damage to his face and mouth. He also suffered back injuries from the fall caused by the explosion.
Our client went from a working, independent person to someone who is permanently disabled, completely unable to work, and in need of lifetime home assistive care.
The Investigation: A Manufacturer With No Answers
What made this case particularly striking wasn’t just the severity of our client’s injuries—it was what our investigation uncovered about the manufacturer’s relationship with its own product.
Our engineering expert, Dr. Matevz Frajnkovic, Ph.D., P.E., conducted a thorough analysis of the equipment and determined that the explosion resulted from a known design defect. The machine was configured so that when deadheaded—meaning the flow of liquid was blocked—the only available path was through a check valve that the manufacturer knew operated unreliably. There were no secondary safety mechanisms in the foam line. When the check valve failed, the system over-pressurized, rupturing the abraded plastic chemical container and sending caustic chemicals onto our client.
This wasn’t an unforeseeable accident. It was a predictable failure of a system with a known weak point and no backup.
But perhaps the most troubling discovery came during the manufacturer’s deposition. When asked to produce historical documents for the product—original design schematics, operation manuals, warnings, testing records—the company’s CEO admitted that none existed. The manufacturer had no documentation whatsoever relating to the product that catastrophically injured our client.
No design records meant no evidence of design review. No testing records meant no evidence the product was ever validated for safe operation. No operation manuals meant no evidence that adequate instructions were ever created. No warnings meant no evidence that users were ever informed of the risks.
And despite more than two years of litigation, the manufacturer had made no attempt to determine what caused the malfunction.
Why Documentation Matters in Product Liability
In product liability cases, a manufacturer’s own records often tell the story. Design schematics reveal whether safety was considered during development. Testing records show whether a product was validated before reaching consumers. Operation manuals demonstrate whether adequate instructions and warnings were provided.
When a manufacturer has none of these documents, it creates a different kind of challenge—but also reveals something important about how seriously that manufacturer takes product safety. Our approach in this case was to build the technical narrative independently through expert engineering analysis, reconstructing what the manufacturer should have known and should have done.
Dr. Frajnkovic’s analysis didn’t require the manufacturer’s records to reach his conclusions. He examined the equipment itself, identified the design defect, and determined the failure mechanism. The manufacturer’s complete absence of documentation actually reinforced the central claim: this was a company that designed, manufactured, and sold equipment used with dangerous chemicals without maintaining the most basic records of how that equipment was supposed to function safely.
The Full Scope of Our Client’s Losses
Legal blindness doesn’t just affect what you can see. It changes everything about how you live.
A vocational rehabilitation expert, Dr. Sarkisian, evaluated our client and determined that he has zero post-incident earning capacity. He is permanently unemployable. The career he had—the independence that comes with being able to support yourself—is gone.
A life care plan developed by Dr. Eli Fish projected our client’s lifetime care needs at over $3.6 million. The largest component is home assistive care, reflecting the reality that someone who is legally blind, suffers chronic pain from light exposure, and has permanent injuries to his face and mouth needs ongoing daily assistance. The plan also accounted for continued ophthalmology care, therapy, psychological services, and long-term medication needs.
Beyond his own losses, our client’s injuries profoundly affected his family. The person they knew—independent, capable, active—was fundamentally changed by this incident. The emotional toll of watching a loved one lose their sight and their ability to care for themselves is a harm that extends well beyond the person who was physically injured.
Resolution
The case was resolved through mediation in January 2026. The resolution was structured to address our client’s long-term needs, including both immediate compensation and funded future periodic payments to provide ongoing financial security.
The settlement was global, resolving both the product liability claims and the related workers’ compensation case. This coordination ensured a clean resolution across all proceedings while maximizing the recovery available to our client and his family.
Holding Manufacturers Accountable—Even When They Keep No Records
This case underscores an important reality in product liability litigation: manufacturers cannot shield themselves from accountability by failing to maintain records of their own products. When a company designs and sells equipment intended for use with hazardous chemicals, the absence of design documentation, testing records, and safety warnings is not a defense—it’s an indictment of their approach to product safety.
Pursuing these cases requires the ability to build a technical case independently. It requires retaining qualified engineering experts who can examine the product, identify defects, and explain failure mechanisms without relying on the manufacturer’s cooperation. It requires understanding the intersection of product liability law and workplace safety. And it requires the willingness to hold manufacturers to account for the foreseeable consequences of their design choices.
If you or a loved one has been seriously injured by defective workplace equipment—particularly equipment involving hazardous chemicals, pressurized systems, or industrial machinery—your case may involve product liability claims beyond workers’ compensation. These cases demand thorough engineering investigation, comprehensive damage analysis, and coordination between civil and workers’ compensation proceedings.
That level of investigation and advocacy is what your case deserves.
This case resolved with a confidential settlement in January 2026. This article presents the case in general terms consistent with settlement agreement provisions and California Rules of Professional Conduct. No confidential settlement terms or amounts are disclosed.
About Adamson Ahdoot LLP
Adamson Ahdoot LLP is a personal injury law firm based in Los Angeles, serving clients throughout California. Our attorneys handle product liability cases, workplace chemical injury claims, and catastrophic injury matters requiring independent engineering analysis and expert collaboration.
