Receptacle back wired, backstabbed. Four cases in the past month.

[retirede]

I've seen several pressure plate connections that have failed, and they always looked to me like the plate had ended up cross threaded on the screw, or stripped. It's not supposed to be able to happen, as the screws are "staked," but Bubba with a large flat blade or Johnny Q Homeowner turning the screwdriver the wrong way can damage the threads.



SceneryDriver

Good call. There are two styles of pressure plates. The ones you describe have the moveable plate threaded and somewhat hidden behind the mating fixed plate. It's hard for a novice to tell if he's messed up the threads somehow. These are common on receptacles.

More common on devices such as circuit breakers has the moveable plate captive under the screw head and the threads in the fixed plate. These would seem to me to be harder to cross thread or otherwise screw up.