Don’t underestimate the lenghts coporations will go to co cover their asses.
WTF? 
Many pans are made from aluminum (in fact, commercial cookware is almost always made solely from aluminum).
Pure AL melts at 1220 degrees farenheit (alloys melt at lower temperatures). Electric stove burners on “High” get hotter then that.
By 12 I was able to use a stove and even left in charge of other people’s kids. This is about Jr. High age and prime babysitting time. I wouldn’t think twice about letting a 12 year old boil water provided they were of reasonable intelligence and maturity.
That said, I personally wouldn’t think to sue over something like this, especially since no one was hurt, but I might drop a letter off to the manufacturer so they can be made aware of a potential defect in their product.
The “Everyday 2 quart saucepan” has a copper bottom. Looking at it, it is very difficult to understand where all the stainless detritus gathered on the floor came from. It could be that the bottom was plied with alternate sheets of copper and ss, but I can’t be sure.
lilabet, I never let a pot boil dry. With the exception of one or two times of my 53 years of life. I have accidently left on burners as well.
How do I explain that my 12 year old who is called upon for 4 or 5 hours to look after people’s most valuable possessions, their babies, needs to have a baby sitter for herself. In 14 months she wll be legally capable of consenting to sex (in Canada) and I won’t be able to do a thing about it.
Perhaps you could tell me at what age I could allow my daughter to use the stove unattended. I need not tell you how she would respond to being told that she’s not old enough to use the stove.
I’m guessing that this was one of the copper encapsulated aluminum bottom pans. Because as Libertarian points out, steel melts at around 2500 degrees Farenheit, and your stove doesn’t come close to that, even if you have one of those industrial restaurant monstrosities. Aluminum and copper have much lower melting points (660 degrees Celsius for aluminum), and I could see a domestic stove coming at least close to that.
But do you have a case against the manufacturer? I’m thinking not, unless the materials of the sauce pan were not as advertised (e.g. you bought stainless and got aluminum). Given the materials of the pan, it’s probably impossible to make the pot indestructible given sufficient carelessness.
Okay, I know this isn’t Cafe Society, and maybe I’ve just got it on the brain because I saw it last night, but did you ever see Alien3? Yeah, I liked that movie, too. It was cool.
Here’s the deal: if something is really bloody hot, you don’t do anything to it. You turn off the heat (but don’t pull it from the heat source into cool air). If it was an electric burner, then your pan probably had a spiral of super-hot metal surrounded by an area of only-slightly-hotter-than-hell metal. The sides of the pan, being farther from the heat and having lots of surface area, were probably only ferociously hot. As soon as you expose the whole thing to (comparatively frigid) ambient air, you might as well be dunking it in ice water. That’s the first problem.
If, as Metacom speaks truly and there was aluminum in the pan, it’s likely that you had some thermal expansion effects going on, especially if one of the metals had become liquid or molten. Since the two dissimilar metals have different rates of thermal expansion, as soon as they’re both solid again (at some temperature T) they will begin to build up stress as one cools more rapidly than the other–check out these experiments, especially the ones about “break a 1/8-inch diameter pin” and “breaking an iron bar” using only the power of thermal expansion. My guess is that the aluminum had just become liquid, and as soon as it was removed from the fire, it solidified; all cooling after that was building up stress, and since the metals were so hot (and flexible) their resistance to stress was much lower. One little crack – maybe a crack that was already there! – would propagate instantly, causing the bottom of the pan to shoot straight down at the floor. That’s your second problem.
Your third problem is that you left a pair of kids – one that wasn’t yours! – home unsupervised, and they made a mistake, which kids will do occasionally. I understand that you’re probably terrified, and feeling maybe a little frightened. You need to realize that any pan made of any metal – even cast iron – will explode under the right conditions. Neither you nor your twelve-year-olds knew that ahead of time, but you know now. Be happy that nobody got hurt, and be very happy that you’re only out one pan and a floor, instead of a house and two kids. Try to decide whether you’re angry at the kids, or at yourself, for what happened. Believe me, though: it’s not the pan’s fault.
One last thing, though: the kid showed quick thinking (even if his/her instinct to douse it was wrong), and owned up to the whole thing, and has probably learned his lesson. I would not revoke any privileges for this event; I might make some changes to whether friends can be over alone, but your kid should be praised for quick thinking, and chastised for carelessness, and chalk the whole thing up to a learning experience.
–Jurph
(who once did the same thing, but had the book-smarts to turn off the burner and listen to it squeeeeeeal as it cooled)
Stainless steel cannot be melted by a stove element. The iron in the element will melt first. The shiny molten droplets were melted aluminum. Everyone knows, or should know, that overheating aluminum cookware on a stove can cause problems.
By the way, I have no intention to pursue restitution for my floor through the courts. I intend to inform Marth Stewart, and nicely suggest that they might show their appreciation for being made aware of this problem and pay for my new floor.
Hey, no harm in trying. I would be interested in hearing how they respond. Boiling a pan dry is careless, but it’s got to be something a pan manufacturer would consider, and I wonder if they have gotten complaints about this before.
If you have the manual or info that came with the pans I would check it just to see if they even mention that it could happen - then you would know that they are at least aware that the pans could do this.
I wouldn’t tell your daughter that she is too young to use a stove either! Good grief - in three years she will be learning to drive, I would hope she has a basic knowledge of home appliances by then. 
Uhhh… At the age of 12, I was not only routinely left home alone, but also entrusted with the care of my 3 sibs (aged 7, 6 &5) and the preparation of dinner for 5.
A lot depends on the individual kid. Just a couple of weeks ago I met the daughter of a friend. She was a completely with-it and together gal, intelligently discussing current events, music and technology. If I were her mom or I had kids, I would not hesitate a moment in letting her stay home alone or watch mine.
On the other had, the daughter of a co-worker of mine (also 12) is antisocial, immature and unpredictable. I wouldn’t let her stay at home alone. I don’t think she could handle it.
In general, though, I don’t think that a 12 year-old is too young to be left alone in their own house.
I wasn’t able to find a really nice cite but I did come up with 2 interesting ones:
http://www.legal-info-legale.nb.ca/pub-minding-sitters.asp
and
http://www.legal-info-legale.nb.ca/pub-minding-homecare.asp
(both for Canada)
grienspace. I would consider yourself lucky. Legally you are liable for any and all damage and injuries children under your care cause/are involved in.
12 years old is the minimal age a child can be left alone. There are no legal age limits about who can babysit (as long as you’re over 12).
I would say that letting children under you care be allowed to use the stove (why were they doing that anyways???) was a very poor choice. If the children were injured you would have be liable. And I’ll tell ya right now if my kid(s) were injured like that you’d have your pants sued off.
Dear Marth Stewart,
I left my junior high school age daughter alone all day, and she boiled one of your pots dry. After being heated long enough, the metal melted, blew up and ruined my floor. I’m sure that you appreciate knowing this and will want to give me the money to refloor the kitchen.
Stand by our president!
Lazlo Toth*
That said, I’m glad to hear that your daughter was ok. It could have turned out much worse.
For what it’s worth, a neighbor’s eleven year old daughter started a cooking fire about six months ago. It filled their house with smoke but didn’t cause any real damage. The worse thing that came of it was that the girl’s father was chewed out by a police officer for leaving a child under fourteen years of age unattended.
*Sure, it’s way out there, but I think that the reference fits.
Spy Magazine, R.I.P.
(That was my first exposure to the Lazlo Toth letters.)
I was making soup and stuff for myself by the age of nine. I was helping with stuff like pouring noodles into water (with supervision) by about six. Really, if you can’t trust a 12-year-old to use an oven…good Lord, I was babysitting at that age. I understand wanting to protect children, but by twelve I’d think they SHOULD know how to use a damn stove.
That being said, I’m glad nobody was hurt. I’ve never boiled a pot dry but it’s one of those things that anybody of any age could slip up and do. I’ll be interested to see if the company pays anything up.
At age 12 I was a latchkey kid and I knew how to use the stove. Managed not to kill myself either, mainly because my parents made sure I understood How Not To Burn The House Down.
But like others have said, boiling a pan dry isn’t just a kid’s mistake. Hell, my grandmother used to do it all the time when my mom was a kid.
grienspace, I’m so glad to hear that your daughter and friend are ok!!
And lilabet, I was babysitting for my own sisters by the time I was 9, and for other people’s children from the age of 11. A 12-year-old isn’t too young to be staying home unattended, nor too young to use a stove. Really.
grienspace, do you have homeowner’s insurance? My mother set our kitchen on fire once when she left a pot of oil on the stove to heat up to make popcorn and forgot about it (yeah, yeah, very irresponsible, I know). The stovetop, the cabinets directly above it and on either side and the floor all had to be replaced and our insurance coverd it, no problem.
And for the record, I, too, have accidentally left a pot on the stove and boiled it dry. I was making hard-boiled eggs, which can take a while to bring to a boil and get hard. No need to stand over it while it did its thing (the whole “a watched pot” thing and all), so I went in the other room and laid down – and promptly fell asleep. Thankfully there was no damage to anything in the kitchen (including, ironically, the pot), but you don’t even want to know what kind of a mess exploded hard-cooked eggs can make – especially in a range hood. YUCK!
The child’s age does not affect the effect of the pan’s explosion. It’s not like the pan would have deliberately chosen NOT to explode if it had been handled by an adult. And believe it or not, adults sometimes boil pans dry, too. My own mother once boiled a pan dry. Luckily, it did not explode. Silly us, leaving my (then)36-year-old mother home by herself and allowing her to use the stove! She could have hurt herself!
Two completely different issues, people. They have NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER.
IMHO - That’s the Best advice so far
As a kid, the best thing that my parents did for me was to let learn from my mistakes. That’s what growing is all about.
It’s not the fault of the manufacuturer of the pan that it was used incorrectly. Go ahead and make your request to Martha Stewart. The way things have been going over there lately they could use a laugh.
Lawyers? LAWYERS?!? I know that the OP didn’t suggest this but some flaming dumbshits did. Are you fucking kidding me? That just makes me ill.
Haj
If I may reflect a bit on my life, and thousands of other ‘kids’.
At 10 years old, I was shown how to drive. I had to put a pillow under my butt so I could see out the windshield.
At 11 I was driving a tractor to mow our property.
I was driving pickups and dump trucks at 12. Our family owned a mobil home park and stuff needed to get done. My brother and I (he is 4 years older than I) did the natural gas hook ups on the new homes. Digging the trench, cutting the pipe, putting it together and testing it.
Gaaaaa. Sorry, this is a bit of a hi-jack. A kid today can’t even have a pocket knife. It’s really, really sad.