Florida Man Sues Samsung After Note 7 Explodes In His Pants

Megalith

Megalith

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Mr. Strobel claims that the phone “burned directly through his pants, resulting in severe burns on his right leg” while he was shopping at Costco. I am surprised that it took this long for someone to hit Samsung with a lawsuit—this is supposedly the first from the States.

Samsung Electronics Co (005930.KS) was sued on Friday by a Florida man who said he suffered severe burns after his Galaxy Note 7 smartphone exploded in his front pants pocket. The lawsuit by Jonathan Strobel may be the first in the United States by a Samsung phone user against the South Korean company over a battery defect linked to the Note 7. It was filed one day after Samsung recalled about 1 million Note 7s sold in the United States. Samsung has received 92 reports of batteries overheating in the United States, including 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage, U.S. safety regulators said.
 
Pretty surprised it took this long as well. I am sure Samsung was expecting it from the get go though. It was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
 
Samsung has had a recall on these phone since before this happen, they have been telling people to turn them off and don't use them. This guy has no grounds to stand on for the lawsuit since he refused to follow the recall instructions. I don't care if there was no phone replacement ready at that point he was told to stop using the phone because of the safety risk and he made the choice to keep using it.
 
You cant fix stupid. Hopefully we don't reward stupid this time.... but it is Florida.
 
Figures it's a Floridian, have seen case down here where a guy sued the parents of a kid because his dog darted for the kid across the road and got hit by a car. Oddly enough this happened in Boca of all places too, lol.
 
Exavior said:
Samsung has had a recall on these phone since before this happen, they have been telling people to turn them off and don't use them. This guy has no grounds to stand on for the lawsuit since he refused to follow the recall instructions. I don't care if there was no phone replacement ready at that point he was told to stop using the phone because of the safety risk and he made the choice to keep using it.
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Lawsuit filed one day after the recall was issued. We don't know if the injury happened b4 or after Samsung advised people to stop using them and carriers to pull the phone. But judging from this thread, Everyone Still Using Their Galaxy Note 7 , people seem to be content to keep using them regardless.

mnewxcv said:
Were these recalls mailed out or what?
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I received a text message, email, and was informed online when I went to pay my bill by ATT. In addition to it being in the news.
 
Exavior said:
Samsung has had a recall on these phone since before this happen, they have been telling people to turn them off and don't use them. This guy has no grounds to stand on for the lawsuit since he refused to follow the recall instructions. I don't care if there was no phone replacement ready at that point he was told to stop using the phone because of the safety risk and he made the choice to keep using it.
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Just because they recalled it doesn't mean he saw the recall or even reads the news. Who knows.
 
Jim Kim said:
Samsung countersues Florida man, because.
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He refused to comply with recall.

auntjemima said:
Just because they recalled it doesn't mean he saw the recall or even reads the news. Who knows.
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toast notification directly to phone and patch quickly sent to every affected phone to limit the battery to 60%.

If he received none of this meh still should have seen recall stuff too big to claim he did not know... igorance of the law does not allow you to break the law.

Samsung might be in such a bad spot ATM they will just settle...
 
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Hard to say if he even knew about the recall. .

Personally if I hadn't been keeping up with news, I still would have no clue. My carrier (Rogers) has sent me no information, Samsung hasnt sent me nothing even though I have a Samsung account that my phone is signed into...

I registered for the recall based on their instructions 10 days ago with the promise if of being contacted in 48 hours... not a word...

This guy is well within his rights to sue most likely....
 
Gorankar said:
Lawsuit filed one day after the recall was issued. We don't know if the injury happened b4 or after Samsung advised people to stop using them and carriers to pull the phone. But judging from this thread, Everyone Still Using Their Galaxy Note 7 , people seem to be content to keep using them regardless.



I received a text message, email, and was informed online when I went to pay my bill by ATT. In addition to it being in the news.
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On my flight to Dallas they made a specific announcement for the Galaxy Note 7 saying the FAA is requiring the phone be turned off, and never plugged in for the duration of the flight.
 
LiPo battery fires are no joke. A guy at RCgroups forum lost his father in a LiPo fire that got out of control on his work bench.

Many RC hobbyists utilize Lipo Charging Bags, which are basically fire proof bags designed for that purpose.

People were charging them in steel ammo cans, but that's a bad idea unless the can is vented sufficiently to prevent rupture..
 
Lith1um said:
LiPo battery fires are no joke. A guy at RCgroups forum lost his father in a LiPo fire that got out of control on his work bench.

Many RC hobbyists utilize Lipo Charging Bags, which are basically fire proof bags designed for that purpose.

People were charging them in steel ammo cans, but that's a bad idea unless the can is vented sufficiently to prevent rupture..
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I see the nice battery bunkers where its cinder blocks and bags of sand on top, so if the battery overheats and catches fire, it melts the plastic bag and dumps sand all over it.
 
I'm not sure the news article is correct. The first time I saw it reported it said the man's Galaxy 7 Edge exploded in his pocket, NOT a Note 7 as indicated by the linked article. The article I saw also had a comment from Samsung that the fire was not related to the Note 7 recall and that battery fires can occur due to "external circumstances".

Man Sues Samsung After Exploding Galaxy Edge S7 Causes 3rd Degree Burns

Construction worker sues Samsung after suffering burns from exploding phone

Burnt man sues Samsung
 
Lith1um said:
LiPo battery fires are no joke. A guy at RCgroups forum lost his father in a LiPo fire that got out of control on his work bench.

Many RC hobbyists utilize Lipo Charging Bags, which are basically fire proof bags designed for that purpose.

People were charging them in steel ammo cans, but that's a bad idea unless the can is vented sufficiently to prevent rupture..
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the ammo can is only bad in that the can itself is conductive of electricity not likely but the potential to short on the can is there. That said if they had to have a wire going into the can it is not a sealed can...
 
Lith1um said:
LiPo battery fires are no joke. A guy at RCgroups forum lost his father in a LiPo fire that got out of control on his work bench.

Many RC hobbyists utilize Lipo Charging Bags, which are basically fire proof bags designed for that purpose.

People were charging them in steel ammo cans, but that's a bad idea unless the can is vented sufficiently to prevent rupture..
Click to expand...


Those bags only prevent the fire from spreading, but do nothing for the toxic fumes being released as it burns.
 
I had not one, but TWO LG A10-7000's CPU boards fail and get hot. I'm talking so hot, it burned my hand to hold it. I put them outside on a brick wall with an ice pack sitting on them. So yep oddball failures can happen.

Now what are the odds, I own two, and two fail the same way? It was a 10" quad core, 1920x1200 with SD card expandable tablet for $160 that was originally $300...More like bad design and they are trying to dump the suckers quickly.
 
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Liar liar pants on fire..... or is that just a Note 7 in your pocket....
 
needmorecarnitine said:
which law did he ignore or break?
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He was talking about ignorance as an excuse for an action. You can't break into a house and steal everything then turn around and say sorry I didn't know that was illegal and get away with it. By the same logic if you are emailed, texted, have an update trying to install to resolve an issue and have news reports all over the place about a recall you can't really say that you didn't know about a recall thus shouldn't be have to be responsible for any result of not following said recall.
 
Exavior said:
He was talking about ignorance as an excuse for an action. You can't break into a house and steal everything then turn around and say sorry I didn't know that was illegal and get away with it. By the same logic if you are emailed, texted, have an update trying to install to resolve an issue and have news reports all over the place about a recall you can't really say that you didn't know about a recall thus shouldn't be have to be responsible for any result of not following said recall.
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Prove he knew there was a recall. That's all I'm saying.

If I want to, I can head to any store and buyout any phone without a contract and go back and live in my hovel in the woods. Who the fuck knows what kind of life this guy leads.

Without this forum I never would have heard of this issue. I don't have cable and I don't read news sites.
 
auntjemima said:
Prove he knew there was a recall. That's all I'm saying.

If I want to, I can head to any store and buyout any phone without a contract and go back and live in my hovel in the woods. Who the fuck knows what kind of life this guy leads.

Without this forum I never would have heard of this issue. I don't have cable and I don't read news sites.
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Him knowing there was a recall is immaterial, you have to show the company was negligent in some way that makes them liable. Sometimes shit just happens.

Now I am not saying Samsung is or is not responsible in this instance, a jury will sort it out if it goes to a civil trial.

I'm just saying that it isn't about whether he was aware of a problem or not. It's all about whether Samsung did something unreasonable regarding their product or problems with their product.
 
Of course they did something unreasonable. Their product explodes. I am sure that's not a feature he was informed of when buying it.
 
auntjemima said:
Prove he knew there was a recall. That's all I'm saying.

If I want to, I can head to any store and buyout any phone without a contract and go back and live in my hovel in the woods. Who the fuck knows what kind of life this guy leads.

Without this forum I never would have heard of this issue. I don't have cable and I don't read news sites.
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Do you have one of said phones? It sounds like those that have one where very aware as they were notified by every possible method that they could be short of somebody driving to their house, kicking the door down and ripping the phone out of their hands.

lcpiper said:
Him knowing there was a recall is immaterial, you have to show the company was negligent in some way that makes them liable. Sometimes shit just happens.

Now I am not saying Samsung is or is not responsible in this instance, a jury will sort it out if it goes to a civil trial.

I'm just saying that it isn't about whether he was aware of a problem or not. It's all about whether Samsung did something unreasonable regarding their product or problems with their product.
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Exactly, were they negligent and hiding the fact that anything happen or did they react in a reasonable way to an issue that suddenly came up. Like you said some times hit just happens. Sometimes you get a bad batch of products and they fail. I have equipment at work with a bad chipset on them that I am waiting for a new revision for that replaces the chipset with a better one. One that Intel decided that catching fire when you receive a phone call wasn't supposed to be a feature of and removed it ... sounds like of like this issue, maybe intel makes their batteries also. :) it made it through Q&A as it wasn't till it was in the field a few weeks or months that it decided to start catching fire in my case. Could be the same for the phones. Not all of them burst into flames, so it could just be that something is wrong to where you need a perfect condition for it to happen. Sadly about 200 people had that perfect condition happen. Some things you just can't realize till you have them out in the field.

auntjemima said:
Of course they did something unreasonable. Their product explodes. I am sure that's not a feature he was informed of when buying it.
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But did they on purpose add that feature? Did they remove some safety mechanism? Or did they just happen to get a shipment of batteries that under testing seemed to work ok but in real world use started to have an issue to which they quickly responded and asked everyone to stop using the phone and stop charging it 100% so that they could get them all replaced with working ones?
 
Canon said:
Hard to say if he even knew about the recall. .

Personally if I hadn't been keeping up with news, I still would have no clue. My carrier (Rogers) has sent me no information, Samsung hasnt sent me nothing even though I have a Samsung account that my phone is signed into...

I registered for the recall based on their instructions 10 days ago with the promise if of being contacted in 48 hours... not a word...

This guy is well within his rights to sue most likely....
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Exavior said:
Do you have one of said phones? It sounds like those that have one where very aware as they were notified by every possible method that they could be short of somebody driving to their house, kicking the door down and ripping the phone out of their hands.
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You sure about that?
 
Lith1um said:
LiPo battery fires are no joke. A guy at RCgroups forum lost his father in a LiPo fire that got out of control on his work bench.

Many RC hobbyists utilize Lipo Charging Bags, which are basically fire proof bags designed for that purpose.

People were charging them in steel ammo cans, but that's a bad idea unless the can is vented sufficiently to prevent rupture..
Click to expand...

This. And all those hoverboard fires were caused by the same thing essentailly. Recharging hot lipos which were probably drawn on too hard and drained bellow 3v per cell = big fire.
 
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