A homeowner purchased an aluminum ladder from a large department store.
He set the ladder up to paint a house. When he was standing on the fifteenth rung, about 11 feet off the ground, a rung gave way and he fell backwards to the ground. He suffered severe injuries, including a cracked vertebra in his neck. X-ray analysis of the ladder revealed that the welding on two of the rungs, including the one which collapsed, was defective and so weak that a weight of fifty pounds would break it.[4]