Colorado man sues after explosion

[Blargh23]

No. Just no. In no way can they be held liable. They sold a battery. If the consumer used it in any manner other than its intended use...well, he is SOL.

I haven't shopped in TehShack in a long time, but I'm going to assume they've covered themselves with the standard legal boilerplate for batteries that limit their liability to the cost of replacement of the device they were used in. The only way they might be be held liable for more is if the sales person was "Oh, these'll work fine."

The line "After buying the proper batteries" irritates me to no end. If they were the "proper" batteries, they wouldn't have blown up.

 

[kwalka]

You cant drive a car, shoot a gun, and on and on and on, until you can prove you know how. There must be a certification, of sorts before you can buy anything above a starter kit. You cant just go out and buy explosives anywhere... Oh, wait a minute, I have a stack of cool business cards here that sells them. The cards come w every order of juice, or attys, or PV's I buy.

 

[John D in CT]

Thought the American way is to sue the deepest pockets not the most liable.

That sounds like a good way to lose a case. It seems to me that the more liable the party is that you're seeking damages from, the more likely you are to prevail. It's just like when a prosecutor over-reaches, like perhaps in the Zimmerman/Martin case, where they're going for second-degree murder, when they probably would have a better chance of convicting Zimmerman of manslaughter.

Lastly, sometimes "the American way" is idiotic.

 

[wolcen]

Here's a thought for the manufactures / vendors out there. Place a standard size folded sheet of paper (8.5 x 11) inside the tube, and in big, bold font, write a warning about using the wrong batteries with the unit. This should at least decrease the number of these incidents for the people who don't read the fine print in the manual.

Lets start making pv tubes that fit with oddly shaped batteries so only the right one will go in. About what people are coming to with this foolishness.

I'm voting these the two best ideas so far

Of course, they'll be cheapie "oddly shaped batteries" in no time that are probably just as likely to explode, but I still really like the idea.

"AA"-sized and other common sized batteries seems about the WORST idea we've had so far.

 

[sema4]

You cant drive a car, shoot a gun, and on and on and on, until you can prove you know how. There must be a certification, of sorts before you can buy anything above a starter kit. You cant just go out and buy explosives anywhere... Oh, wait a minute, I have a stack of cool business cards here that sells them. The cards come w every order of juice, or attys, or PV's I buy.

Sure you can. Any teen without a license can drive a car improperly and possibly injure someone. Should every car block entry to people unworthy of driving? No. If he didn't use the supplied or otherwise available batteries for it then he is in the wrong and is a victim of his own decision. I'm sure somewhere in the documentation it states the correct battery to use with that model of e-cig. Oh also you have to be 18 or over if you buy these... so that implies people using them know how to read manuals and not be inept.

 

[kwalka]

I'm voting these the two best ideas so far

Of course, they'll be cheapie "oddly shaped batteries" in no time that are probably just as likely to explode, but I still really like the idea.

"AA"-sized and other common sized batteries seems about the WORST idea we've had so far.

Then they will get sued for discriminating against AA batts

 

[emus]

I haven't shopped in TehShack in a long time, but I'm going to assume they've covered themselves with the standard legal boilerplate for batteries that limit their liability to the cost of replacement of the device they were used in. The only way they might be be held liable for more is if the sales person was "Oh, these'll work fine."

The line "After buying the proper batteries" irritates me to no end. If they were the "proper" batteries, they wouldn't have blown up.

Wonder if batt will short out if installed upside down in some Prodigy models?

 

[martinc]

Like I say a lot these days: who the **bleep** reads owners manuals?

 

[Rocketman]

have you ever seen an oddly shaped roll of toilet paper? That would be handy to keep the roll from unloading on it's own. should be easy to roll up a triangle shaped roll of T-paper or paper towels or Li-ion batteries.

 

[kwalka]

Sure you can. Any teen without a license can drive a car improperly and possibly injure someone. Should every car block entry to people unworthy of driving? No. If he didn't use the supplied or otherwise available batteries for it then he is in the wrong and is a victim of his own decision. I'm sure somewhere in the documentation it states the correct battery to use with that model of e-cig.

Agreed, and if he read the manual and proved so , and knew the proper procedures, he would of avoided the ER

 

[sema4]

Like I say a lot these days: who the **bleep** reads owners manuals?

Good point, but if that manual would have steered you away from a bad decision then you did it yourself, whatever the outcome.

 

[Slim Batz]

I don't think I'll ever buy a vaporizer that I have to buy the batteries separately. Every disaster I've read about concerns the mods that you have to buy the batts from somewhere else. I will stick with my KGO...I haven't heard news of any catastrophes with a KGO. :/

Electronic Cigarette Battery EXPLOSION!!! - YouTube

Any LION battery has the potential to fail catastrophically. EGO style units have the benefit of being self contained, thereby reducing the possibility of user error/stupidity, but there is nothing magic going on in there, and not everything gets reported in the news. I view it as acceptable risk ... every day I jump in my truck and happily drive around sitting on top of 80 Litres or so of gasoline.

 

[sema4]

have you ever seen an oddly shaped roll of toilet paper? That would be handy to keep the roll from unloading on it's own. should be easy to roll up a triangle shaped roll of T-paper or paper towels or Li-ion batteries.

Gosh, I'm imagining someone with a vice and some batteries trying to make them fit into their star shaped mod rofl.

 

[kwalka]

I started w KR808's, Flew thru eGo's and ended up w a couple of $200 steel tube mods, in under 90 days. Well guess what, when I started reading into exactly what I had and the potential there, I put the mods away, bought a meter and spent days reading up on proper handling and care. After the education I made some decisions and chose to eat some of the investment, in the interest of safety. I got some downright dangerous input from a very well regarded vendor here on ECF. If I had not done my due diligence, and listened to the vendor who was apparently so busy that he could not give my ticket the time of day, there could of been some dire consequences.
Its scary to think where this industry is going to end up on this current path. It only takes a few of these stories (CO, FL,etc) before were all done.

 

[Uncle Willie]

I agree regulation, testing, warning, education is necessary with these; but the gun and car analogy stands. They crash them, drive them, test cars up and down over and over, but people still get hurt. At the end of the day it cannot be Honda's, Toyota's or any other car maker's fault if someone gets hurt. UNLESS they shipped it knowing it was faulty. Nothing in any PV I know of is faulty to the point that it shorts and causes the battery to explode. If it were designed poorly and that happens fine, take it off the market.

Allow the unit to be sold and let the users be the crash dummies .. ?? My point is, the PV is not subjected to even a UL certification .. and yes, I'm using my mod right now ..

Also, I can say that I wouldn't sue, even if in a similar situation. Some things come from common sense...like when my battery dies I don't go looking for regular AA's to make it work again. Yes my pv sitting 4 foot from my 3 year old may pose a risk.... it is a risk I apparently am willing to accept. I also let my 3 year old into the garage where my water heater is. If that thing exploded (rare but it happens) and she got hurt, well yeah obviously that would be devastating, but at no point would suing Whirlpool or the contractor who installed it or Lowe's for selling it to me, cross my mind. Freak accidents happen. Heck even cell phones explode...

Although I did not direct my lawsuit comments at anyone in particular, I find it amazing that you can rule out this option 100% .. if my child / spouse / family or myself were placed in a scenario such as those you describe or the OP experienced, even if no monetary gain could be expected, I would do whatever was in my power to make sure it did not happen to anyone else .. and the Court is how that's done ..

 

[Yelsew Skraps]

Allow the unit to be sold and let the users be the crash dummies .. ?? My point is, the PV is not subjected to even a UL certification .. and yes, I'm using my mod right now ..



Although I did not direct my lawsuit comments at anyone in particular, I find it amazing that you can rule out this option 100% .. if my child / spouse / family or myself were placed in a scenario such as those you describe or the OP experienced, even if no monetary gain could be expected, I would do whatever was in my power to make sure it did not happen to anyone else .. and the Court is how that's done ..

The problem is most of these lawsuits end up out of court with a gag order and no change ever comes about, just someone gets money and gags on it...

 

[emus]

I started w KR808's, Flew thru eGo's and ended up w a couple of $200 steel tube mods, in under 90 days. Well guess what, when I started reading into exactly what I had and the potential there, I put the mods away, bought a meter and spent days reading up on proper handling and care. After the education I made some decisions and chose to eat some of the investment, in the interest of safety. I got some downright dangerous input from a very well regarded vendor here on ECF. If I had not done my due diligence, and listened to the vendor who was apparently so busy that he could not give my ticket the time of day, there could of been some dire consequences.
Its scary to think where this industry is going to end up on this current path. It only takes a few of these stories (CO, FL,etc) before were all done.

I'm hopeful.
I've seen plenty of exploding cars but I can still buy one.

 

[John D in CT]

Electronic Cigarette Battery EXPLOSION!!! - YouTube

Any LION battery has the potential to fail catastrophically. EGO style units have the benefit of being self contained, thereby reducing the possibility of user error/stupidity, but there is nothing magic going on in there, and not everything gets reported in the news. I view it as acceptable risk ... every day I jump in my truck and happily drive around sitting on top of 80 Litres or so of gasoline.

As you seem to indicate, the poster of the video said that it was a genuine Joyetech eGo 650mah battery that exploded.

Interesting, he said that he was charging it on his "USB cable", which leads me to think that he had it plugged into a USB port on his computer. Whether or not he was: I've heard conflicting thing about doing that, including "the USB puts out 5 amps, which is too high". I just started to type "But wouldn't the battery just draw as many amps as it requires as it's charging", and then thought about my automobile battery chargers that can charge a battery slowly at 2 amps, or more quickly at 10 amps (at 110V I should add).

So - plugging a passthrough into a computer USB port. OK? Bad? Why?

If he was charging it not on his computer but on the genuine Joyetech 110 charger with USB connection, what do we think exactly caused the battery to explode? Internal short? Defective charger that was giving it too many amps?

 

[kwalka]

I'm hopeful.
I've seen plenty of exploding cars but I can still buy one.

Absolutley, after 75 years of design and engineering, and oversight, and regulation.

 

[emus]

As you seem to indicate, the poster of the video said that it was a genuine Joyetech eGo 650mah battery that exploded.

Interesting, he said that he was charging it on his "USB cable", which leads me to think that he had it plugged into a USB port on his computer. Whether or not he was: I've heard conflicting thing about doing that, including "the USB puts out 5 amps, which is too high". I just started to type "But wouldn't the battery just draw as many amps as it requires as it's charging", and then thought about my automobile battery chargers that can charge a battery slowly at 2 amps, or more quickly at 10 amps (at 110V I should add).


So - plugging a passthrough into a computer USB port. OK? Bad? Why?

If he was charging it not on his computer but on the genuine Joyetech 110 charger with USB connection, what do we think exactly caused the battery to explode? Internal short? Defective charger that was giving it too many amps?

It is my understanding that a properly designed and functioning charger has a circuit to prevent overcharge.