A Minnesota man is suing Airbnb after a fire at a rental cabin in Juneau County killed his wife, his 5-year-old daughter and four other of his family members.
The lawsuit from Stephen Kuehl alleges those deaths could have been prevented if Airbnb had proper fire safety requirements for rental properties. It also alleges the rental property, a cabin in the town of Germantown, was not “appropriately licensed or inspected” under state and local regulations.
The cabin was owned and rented out by Illinois residents Yevhen Hurtovyi and Iulia Lytvyneko, who are also named as defendants in the lawsuit. Kuehl rented the 3.5-acre property for one week for his family for over $10,000. The cabin went up in flames on the morning of June 30, 2024 — less than two days after the family started their stay there.
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The civil complaint alleges the property did not contain smoke or carbon monoxide detectors that were “sufficient in number, sufficiently located, and/or functioning.” The complaint said none of the people staying in the cabin were woken up by a fire or a smoke detector after the fire started.
“Ultimately, five members of the Witte family were trapped upstairs by the fire and unable to escape,” the complaint said.
Kuehl’s wife, Charis Kuehl, and their 5-old daughter died in the fire. Charis Kuehl’s father and sister, Steve Witte and Lydia M. Witte, died in the blaze. Two of Steve Witte’s other granddaughters, who were 2 and 8, also died in the fire.
“A sufficient and functioning fire detection system would have saved the lives of each of the Witte family members sleeping in the cabin that night,” the complaint says. “Mere seconds would have made a difference.”
Stacy Alexejun, a partner at Quarles & Brady, is representing Kuehl and his two daughters who survived the fire.
“What he (Kuehl) wants is for Airbnb to make changes. And he is hoping that by bringing this lawsuit and by speaking out, he can help mitigate or prevent another family from having to go through what he and his daughters have been through,” Alexejun said in an interview.
The complaint says Airbnb encourages but does not require its rental properties to be equipped with smoke detectors, and that “mere encouragement is not enough.”
Attorneys who represent Airbnb did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The Airbnb website says carbon monoxide and smoke detectors “save lives.”
“That’s why we’re on a mission to get alarms into as many listings as possible,” the website says. “We strongly urge hosts to install smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in spaces that use fuel-burning appliances, test them regularly, and make sure their listing description is up to date.”
The lawsuit is seeking an unspecified amount in damages “for all harm suffered by Plaintiffs, including without limitation all personal, wrongful death, survivorship and monetary damages.”
It was filed in June in Juneau County Circuit Court but was moved to the Western District of Wisconsin, a federal court, on Oct. 16.
Last year, the Juneau County Sheriff’s Office announced it would not file criminal charges against the owners of the cabin, according to a WKOW report.
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