Samsung Battery Fires and Explosions: What Injured People and Families Should Know

What a Samsung Battery Fire or Explosion Can Mean for Someone Who Was Hurt

A battery fire or explosion can cause burns, smoke inhalation and property damage, and in the most serious cases it can cause a death. When the device involved carries a well-known brand name, people often assume the answers will be easy to find. Usually they are not.

This page covers Samsung-branded products specifically. It draws on the recall notices the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (the CPSC) has published that name Samsung, and on the federal product-safety law that governs recalls.

The page is informational. It does not say what caused any particular Samsung battery fire, whether any person has a claim, or what a claim might be worth. Nothing here states or implies that Samsung caused an injury, was at fault, or made a defective product. Only the facts of a specific case, tested under the law of a specific state, can answer those questions.

If you are at the start of sorting this out, the useful first questions are practical ones: which device was involved, whether it was covered by a recall, and what records of the injury and the fire still exist. The sections below take each in turn.

Who Made Your Device: Samsung Electronics America and the Recall Record

The CPSC recall notices for the Galaxy Note7 list the manufacturer as "Samsung Electronics America Inc., of Ridgefield Park, N.J." Both notices give the place of manufacture as "South Korea and China." When this page uses the name Samsung, it means that entity, as those official pages describe it.

The same notices state that the Note7 was sold through wireless carriers, electronics stores and websites, including Samsung's own site, from August 2016 through October 2016.

For someone who was hurt, the exact name matters because product-liability claims are brought against specific legal entities, not against a brand name. The company printed on a phone, the company that imported it, and the store that sold it can be different businesses. The recall records identify who the CPSC listed as the manufacturer for one model. They say nothing about any other Samsung product and do not describe a pattern across the brand.

If you still have the box, receipt or order history, those papers can help match your device to the entity and seller named in the record, a point that can be worked through in a conversation with an attorney.

Whether Your Note7 Was Covered by a CPSC Recall

A recall is a corrective action, such as a repair, a replacement or a refund, announced for a product that presents a safety hazard. It is not a finding that the product injured any particular person, and it is not a finding that the manufacturer is liable. The CPSC is the federal agency that oversees consumer product recalls in the United States.

The first notice is CPSC recall 16-266, dated September 15, 2016, titled "Samsung Recalls Galaxy Note7 Smartphones Due to Serious Fire and Burn Hazards." It covers Galaxy Note7 smartphones sold before September 15, 2016, about 1 million units. The CPSC states the hazard this way: "The lithium-ion battery in the Galaxy Note7 smartphones can overheat and catch fire, posing a serious burn hazard to consumers." The remedy listed is "free of charge a new Galaxy Note7 with a different battery, a refund or a new replacement device." Under its incidents heading, the notice states: "Samsung has received 92 reports of the batteries overheating in the U.S., including 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage, including fires in cars and a garage."

The second notice is CPSC recall 17-011, dated October 13, 2016, titled "Samsung Expands Recall of Galaxy Note7 Smartphones Based on Additional Incidents with Replacement Phones; Serious Fire and Burn Hazards." It covers "all Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphones," including devices received as replacements in the September recall. It lists about 1.9 million units, which includes the 1 million recalled earlier. The remedy is "a refund or free exchange for a new replacement device plus incentives." The notice states that "Samsung has received 96 reports of batteries in Note7 phones overheating in the U.S., including 23 new reports since the September 15 recall announcement," along with "13 reports of burns and 47 reports of property damage associated with Note7 phones."

These are reports the company received, as the CPSC page records them, and a report is not proof of what caused a particular fire. For a person who was hurt, a recall can show that a hazard was identified for that model, but the claim still turns on what happened to the specific device. When the device was bought, and whether it was an original or a replacement, can help show which notice applied.

What May Have Gone Wrong Inside the Battery

Both Note7 notices name the lithium-ion battery as the source of the hazard, so how these batteries fail bears directly on anyone hurt by one.

Thermal runaway is a self-reinforcing cycle. Heat inside a battery cell sets off chemical reactions, those reactions produce more heat, and the cycle can feed on itself until the cell ruptures, catches fire or explodes. It is the general mechanism behind most lithium-ion battery fires. What starts the cycle differs from one failure to the next.

A battery management system is the electronics that monitor and control a battery's charging, discharging, temperature and cell balance. When it works as intended, it is designed to keep the cells within safe limits. When a cell has a physical flaw, or when the controlling electronics fail, that protection may not hold.

How a claim is framed depends on which kind of problem caused the fire, and the law recognizes three. A design defect is built into the product's plan, so every unit made to that plan carries the risk. A manufacturing defect is a flaw in how your particular unit was made, so it departs from its own design. A failure-to-warn defect is a gap in the warnings or instructions that leaves a risk unexplained.

If you are holding a burned phone, its remains may be the main evidence of which of these occurred. The cause of a specific battery failure is a factual question, answered by an official record or by expert examination of the product, never by assumption and never by a brand name. This page does not suggest what caused any Samsung battery fire. Whether the device and its charger were kept, and in what condition, is often one of the first things an attorney asks about.

What You Would Have to Show After a Battery Injury

Federal law puts a reporting duty on companies, not on injured people. Under 15 U.S.C. § 2064, a manufacturer, distributor or retailer of a consumer product that obtains information reasonably supporting the conclusion that the product "contains a defect which could create a substantial product hazard," or "creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death," must "immediately inform the Commission," generally unless it knows the CPSC has already been adequately informed. That statute governs reporting to the agency and recall orders. It does not decide private injury claims.

The CPSC's regulation gives its working meaning of a defect. Under 16 C.F.R. § 1115.4, "a defect is a fault, flaw, or irregularity that causes weakness, failure, or inadequacy in form or function." The same section adds that a defect "can also occur in a product's contents, construction, finish, packaging, warnings, and/or instructions."

Product liability is the body of law that can hold manufacturers, importers, distributors and sellers responsible when a defective product causes an injury. A product-liability claim typically requires three things: a defect (design, manufacturing or warning), causation, meaning the defect actually caused the injury, and damages. A negligence claim typically requires a duty of care, a breach of that duty, causation and damages. Many states also allow claims that do not depend on proving carelessness, but the forms they take differ.

For someone with a hospital bill, this means the injury alone does not carry the claim: a defect does not by itself prove that it caused a particular injury, and each element has to be shown with evidence.

State law decides most of these cases. A statute of limitations, the deadline for filing a lawsuit, differs by state and by the type of claim, and so do the rules on when it starts to run. Fault rules, including comparative and contributory negligence, and damages rules also differ. For a death, each state's wrongful death law, which governs who may bring a claim when someone dies, sets its own terms. As one example, this site has a page on California lithium battery injury rules; California's rules apply only in California. The state where the fire happened, and when, are details that shape which of these rules an attorney looks at first.

Which Companies Can Be Held Responsible After a Note7 Fire

A phone that burned may have passed through several companies before it reached you: the maker, an importer, a distributor and a retailer. That path is called the chain of distribution, and depending on the state's law and the facts, U.S. product-liability law can reach more than one link in it.

For the Galaxy Note7, the CPSC notices name Samsung Electronics America, Inc. as the manufacturer. That is a statement about who the recall record lists, not about who is responsible for any injury. The parties that matter in a specific case depend on its facts: which unit it was, where it came from, whether it was an original or a replacement device, and what happened to it.

The same tracing question arises with every battery-powered product. This site's pages on Anker battery recall records and on the INIU power bank recall show how other CPSC notices identify the firms involved.

If you are trying to work out which companies stood behind the device that burned, that question can be part of a conversation with our attorney through a case evaluation request, along with where the product was bought and which recall, if any, covered it.

Records That Can Help Show What Happened

If you were hurt, the records that usually matter include medical records, photographs and video, the product itself, purchase records, official reports and witness information. Each fills a different gap.

Medical records document the nature and extent of the injury and the treatment that followed. They are the main record of what a burn or smoke inhalation did to the person.

Photographs and video of the product, the scene and the injuries capture conditions that change quickly. Scorch patterns and damage to a room or a car can show where a fire started.

The product itself, with its packaging, charger and accessories, can matter most of all. An expert may examine the remains of a battery to identify how it failed, which bears directly on defect and causation.

Purchase records, receipts and order history identify the exact model and where it was sold. For a Note7, that can show which of the two recall notices covered the device.

Incident reports, fire department reports and police reports record what responders saw and when. The names and contact details of witnesses round out the picture.

Families after a house fire or a death are often gathering these things while grieving. What survives in each category shapes what can later be shown.

Questions Worth Asking Before You Speak With an Attorney About a Samsung Battery Injury

A conversation about a battery injury goes further when the basic facts are in view. These are questions a person in this position may find it useful to think through.

What Samsung product was involved, and when was it bought? The model name, and for a phone the identifying number on the device or its box, can show whether a recall applied.

When and where did the fire or explosion happen? The state where it happened usually decides which law applies, and limitation periods differ from state to state. Time can affect a claim, and the deadline that applies depends on that state's law and the facts.

What injuries or property damage resulted? Burns, smoke inhalation, hospital stays, time away from work and damage to a home or car each belong in the account.

What records exist right now? Medical records, purchase records, photos and any fire department or incident report are worth listing, along with whether the device or its remains still exist.

Answers to these questions give a case evaluation something concrete to work from.