What happened: Liberty Insurance Corporation alleges a Broan-NuTone bathroom exhaust fan caught fire due to a defective thermal safeguard in the motor
Who's involved: Liberty Insurance Corporation (insurer) and Broan-NuTone, LLC (manufacturer)
What's at stake: $456,055.16 paid under the homeowners policy, plus a $1,000 deductible
Why it matters: A product-defect subrogation action that traces the alleged failure to a single named component - the thermal protection in the fan motor
Where it stands: Complaint filed September 29, 2026
A bathroom exhaust fan had one thermal safety job: stop the motor from overheating. According to a new federal lawsuit, it failed - and the fire that followed cost an insurer more than $456,000.
Liberty Insurance Corporation filed suit against Broan-NuTone, LLC in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York on September 29, 2026, stepping into the shoes of its policyholder to chase the manufacturer for what it paid out on the claim.
The complaint centres on a Broan-NuTone bathroom exhaust ventilation fan with a light, installed in a home in Pennellville, New York. On April 21, 2025, the filing alleges, the fan "malfunctioned, caught fire" and caused a blaze that damaged both the home and personal property inside it, resulting in loss of use of the property.
At the heart of the claim is a pointed allegation about a specific part. The complaint says the fan's thermal protection component - built into the motor to keep it from overheating - "failed to operate as intended." With that safeguard out of action, the filing alleges, the motor overheated and started the fire.
The fan was being used normally, the complaint states, and had been "maintained in a safe and proper manner, without any alteration or modification." It was switched on at the time.
Liberty's case runs on three tracks. The first is negligence: the insurer alleges Broan-NuTone failed to properly design, manufacture, and test the fan. The second argues the company broke the basic promise that comes with selling a product - that it is safe and fit for normal use. The third says the fan was sold in "a defective and unreasonably dangerous condition," making the manufacturer responsible regardless of fault.
Liberty says it paid $456,055.16 under its homeowners policy to cover damage to the home, personal property, and additional living expenses. The policyholder also bore a $1,000 deductible. The insurer now wants the full amount back from Broan-NuTone, along with interest, costs, and attorney's fees.
Broan-NuTone, based in Hartford, Wisconsin, is a major US manufacturer of residential ventilation products including bathroom fans, range hoods, and indoor air quality systems. The complaint identifies its sole owner as Nortek, Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in Missouri.
What stands out here is the specificity. Rather than a general claim that the product was defective, Liberty points to a named component - the thermal protection in the fan motor - and a named failure: it did not prevent overheating. That kind of detail typically signals a fire-origin investigation that traced the cause to a particular part.
A jury trial has been demanded.
Subrogation recoveries in product-defect fire cases often hinge on how precisely an insurer can connect a loss to a specific failure - and the mundane fixtures behind bathroom walls can quietly generate six-figure claims when they stop working as designed.
The allegations in the complaint have not been tested, and no court has made any ruling on the merits.
