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…