In August of 2020, Amazon fought a lawsuit from Angela Bolger. Bolger had been injured by a faulty replacement laptop battery that she had purchased on Amazon. Sparks had flown from the $12 replacement battery she had bought. Bolger suffered third-degrees on her arms, feet, and legs, and did considerable damage to her apartment – her bed burned, along with the clothes on the floor of her San Diego residence.
Bolger has needed skin graft surgery to repair the damage from those third-degree burns.
Amazon fought her lawsuit. The only compensation the e-commerce megacompany was willing to provide was a refund for her $12 battery purchase. Amazon argued that as an e-commerce retailer, they lack responsibility for damages due to defective products. Up until this year, courts have largely sided with Amazon.
Thanks to Bolger’s lawsuit, a new bill is in the California courts which seeks to change this precedent. Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Monterey) has introduced Assembly Bill 1182, which will hold e-commerce resellers responsible for items they sell from third-party vendors.
The California court in Bolger’s case ruled that Amazon had taken possession of the battery, accepted payment for it, and shipped it to her in Amazon packaging. The court ruled that Bolger would not have been injured had Amazon not taken these steps.
While California rulings do not affect other states, the Bolger case nonetheless makes it more difficult for Amazon to deny responsibility. In June of 2020, a federal judge in Texas also ruled that Amazon could liable for the sale of an item by a third party. In that case, a knockoff Apple TV remote did not have childproof safety measures, and a 19-month-old required surgery after the battery’s remote lodged in her esophagus.