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Flammable Robe Killed Elderly Couple, Family Says

Posted: 4:36 pm PDT October 23, 2009Updated: 10:58 am PDT October 26, 2009

A KIRO 7 Investigation led to a nation-wide recall of 300,000 dangerously flammable bathrobes and other garments.

Now, for the first time, we’re hearing from loved-ones who say those same robes killed both their parents.

On Friday, a civil lawsuit was filed in San Diego, California, on behalf of two women who claim that if it weren’t for Blair’s flammable bathrobes, their parents would still be alive.

Michelle Putini describes what happened to her mother’s robe: "It just went up like that. And that’s not supposed to happen with a product."

She and her sister, Susan Brent, now have a warning for anyone who may have a recalled Blair bathrobe: "Get rid of them, throw them out," Brent says. "Look in their closet and make sure they don’t have one."

In California Superior Court on Friday the sisters’ attorney filed a civil complaint against the Blair Corporation, the clothing company that sold their mother a 100-percent cotton chenille bathrobe in December 2008.

Two months later, while making her morning tea, Evelyn Rogoff's bathrobe sleeve caught fire. The flames spread. According to the lawsuit, her husband, Murray, threw himself on his wife to try and smother the fire, but that he, too, was soon engulfed in flames.

Brent says she tried to put out the fire with water.

"I heard my mom screaming, so I went into the kitchen," she said Friday in an interview outside a California courthouse. "Both my mom and my dad were on the floor, and my mom was on fire."

81-year old Evelyn Rogoff died weeks later. Her 83-year old husband passed away weeks after that.

Between their deaths, the Rogoffs' daughters say they received a recall notice from the Consumer Product Safety Commission notifying them that the robe their mother had been wearing was being recalled because it did not pass federal flammability standards. That recall, according to the CPSC, was "spurred" by a KIRO 7 Consumer Investigation into a Tenino, Washington woman's similar bathrobe fire last December.

That woman’s husband told KIRO 7 Consumer Investigator Amy Clancy that he told Blair employees late last year he was concerned about the safety of the robes.

"Somebody’s going to die, or be extremely disfigured," Cody Bingham told Clancy earlier this year.

The lawsuit filed Friday claims Blair knew the robes were, quote: "dangerously unsafe and highly flammable" long before the Rogoffs died.

"People need to know that they could die from using this product," Putini said. "We don’t want anyone else to have to go through what our family is going through. We lost both of our parents."

The Consumer Product Safety Commission reports nine deaths linked to the same Blair 100% cotton chenille bathrobe Evelyn Rogoff was wearing. But that doesn’t include Murray Rogoff’s death. He would be the tenth victim.

Also late this week, a similar lawsuit was filed in Connecticut on behalf of a woman there who’s death is also being linked to the chenille robes.

Both suits seek millions of dollars in damages.

When reached by Clancy after the suits were filed, a Blair spokeswoman said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

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