Former Paloma Industries Ltd. President Toshihiro Kobayashi pleaded not guilty Thursday to professional negligence involving the death of a university student and injury to his older brother caused by carbon monoxide poisoning from a Paloma gas water heater in 2005.
Kobayashi's codefendant, Wataru Kamatsuka, also pleaded not guilty. Kamatsuka was chief of the product quality management division at Nagoya-based Paloma, one of the nation's top appliance makers along with Rinnai Corp. and Harman Co.
Kobayashi, 71, and Kamatsuka, 58, entered their pleas at the start of their Tokyo District Court criminal trial.
The indictment alleges Kobayashi and Kamatsuka received in-house reports on 12 cases of improperly altered Paloma heaters that caused 14 deaths between 1985 and 2001 but neglected to warn customers, recall the devices or take any other precautions.
Prosecutors allege that their negligence led to the death of Hiroyuki Joshima, an 18-year-old university student, and seriously injured his older brother, Takayuki, who is now 28, at their apartment in Minato Ward, Tokyo, in November 2005.
Judicial experts said it is unusual to hold a business criminally responsible for product safety measures and not defects.
The lawyers are expected to clash over whether the defendants could have foreseen the carbon monoxide poisonings and whether they took reasonable measures, they said.
Paloma's gas water heaters have a history of ignition problems resulting from defective safety devices. As a temporary step, many maintenance firms disabled the safety devices, leading to dozens of carbon monoxide poisoning cases.
In 2006, Paloma announced its gas-powered water heaters caused 28 carbon monoxide poisonings between 1985 and 2005 that led to 21 deaths. Tokyo police filed reports on Kobayashi and Kamatsuka, who were later indicted but not arrested.