Samsung has been ordered to pay $10.8 million in damages to a Georgia man who suffered severe burns after a battery explosion involving an e-cigarette device. The decision comes five years after the lawsuit was originally filed.
Jordan Brewer, a resident of Effingham County, filed a product liability lawsuit against Samsung in Chatham County Court in July 2020, claiming that a Samsung battery installed in an e-cigarette pen exploded in his pants pocket. He said he had purchased the device in Chatham County and sustained serious injuries from the explosion.
When Samsung failed to respond to the lawsuit by September 2020, a county judge issued a default judgment, holding the company liable and awarding $10.8 million in damages.
That judgment was later overturned in January 2022 by a different judge, who ruled that while Samsung could not avoid liability, the damages would need to be recalculated. The case was then dismissed again in an initial appeal, with the judge determining that the lawsuit should have been filed in Effingham County.
On June 23, the Georgia Court of Appeals reversed that decision, ruling that Brewer had properly filed the suit in Chatham County, where he resided at the time of the alleged August 2019 explosion. The court reinstated the original $10.8 million award, stating that Samsung’s attempt to challenge the ruling came too late.
“Because a valid final judgment was entered before Samsung sought to open default, the company is no longer entitled to do so,” the appellate court ruled. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), Samsung’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
Brewer’s attorney said his client required skin grafts and surgery due to the burns, suffered extreme pain, and was left with permanent scarring. “We look forward to finally securing compensation for the severe burns the court recognized five years ago,” the attorney added.
The AJC also reported that similar lawsuits in Georgia and other states have sparked debates over proper court jurisdiction in battery explosion cases. Manufacturers like Samsung and LG Chem have, in some instances, succeeded in getting cases dismissed by arguing that the lawsuits lacked a sufficient connection to the region where they were filed.
