Apple Sued By State Farm Over Alleged iPhone Fire (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader quotes CNET: Insurer State Farm and one of its customers, Wisconsin resident Xai Thao, allege that one of Apple's older iPhones had a defective battery that led to a fire last year. A lawsuit filed on Thursday by both State Farm and Thao claims that her iPhone 4S "failed" and "started a fire at Thao's home." The lawsuit further claims that "preliminary investigations show evidence of a significant and localized heating event in the battery area of the iPhone." It also declares that there were "remnants of internal shorting, indicating that an internal failure of the iPhone's battery caused the fire"... The State Farm lawsuit says that Thao's iPhone was "in a defective and unreasonably dangerous condition" when she bought it in 2014. The suit is claiming in excess of $75,000 in damages.

Comments

Discontinued in Sep 2013.

[HornWumpus]

She bought the phone at least 4 months after it was discontinued (Sept 2013 per Wiki).

Who did she buy the phone from?

Who made the battery in it when it burned?

WTF happened to /.? We all hate Apple and all, but this? Really? Kick the lawyer in the balls until he pukes.

Re:Discontinued in Sep 2013.

[dgatwood]

She bought the phone at least 4 months after it was discontinued (Sept 2013 per Wiki).

No, the iPhone 4s was discontinued in September of 2014 in the United States, and was still sold in some countries as late as 2016.

Re:Discontinued in Sep 2013.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but no.

When I design electronics I have to take fire hazard into consideration.
I know that despite how many signs I put up some nitwit will connect 230VAC to a device made for 24VDC.
It doesn't have to work then, it is OK if the smoke is let out, but under no circumstance is is acceptable that it causes a fire.

Yes, it is harder to solve the mechanical part and it will cut into profit margins, but the phone should have a PTC-resistor to detect if the battery is overheating and stop charging and shut down the phone. (You shouldn't even use the battery if it overheats.)
No, it isn't user friendly to display a black screen instead of a faulty battery symbol, but people lives are more important than their convenience.

Apple consistently makes design choices where appearance takes precedence over other things.
Same problem with their official charger. To get down the size they reduced the distance between the top of the mains capacitor to the USB shield to something like 2 mm where it should have been at least 6 mm.
Sure, the charger is smaller, but whoever made the decision should end up in jail.

But hey, they are winning, companies that follows the rules can't compete.

Not a surprise

[Mr D from 63]

Any manufacturer of devices with Lithium Ion batteries runs a risk of an occasional failure sparking a fire. Its not negligence, they implement all kinds of quality controls and features to prevent fires, but they are going to happen. Might be best for Apple to just pay up and not make much noise about it, as it is a rare event overall.

Re: Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's no reason for a lithium cell to ever fail if it's sized properly for it's chemistry."

Wrong, there is a reason. Time.

Obviously,

[Anonymous Coward]

She was holding it wrong.

Subrogation

[FlyHelicopters]

A lot of people posting here need to look up Subrogation and learn something about what State Farm is doing.

They paid out and are now looking to recover their payment, this is something they are allowed to do and is normal under the law.

http://www.dmv.org/insurance/s...

The policy holder is part of the suit because your insurance company requires it. If you have insurance and it pays you on a claim, you are agreeing to help sue anyone they want to go after to recover the money.