Christian Soller settled a high-exposure, wrongful death case scheduled for an upcoming trial in federal court.  The plaintiff sustained third-degree burns to over 90% of his body when a deflagration (flash fire) occurred during his maintenance of a dust collector. To secure the settlement contributions, Christian successfully argued that when the manufacturer supplied the dust collector nine years before the accident, it should have equipped the machine with an explosion panel ⸻ which would have stifled and directed the deflagration away from the area where plaintiff was working ⸻ and that the insurer’s failure to detect and disclose the risk of deflagration during its biannual inspections of the mill constituted gross negligence and, in turn, voided the policy exclusion relied upon by the insurer.