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Judge Rules Amazon Isn't Liable For Damages Caused By a Hoverboard It Sold (cnbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the digital-middleman dept.

Earlier this week, a judge in Tennessee ruled that Amazon isn't liable for damages caused by a hoverboard that spontaneously exploded and burned down a family's house, even though they bought it on Amazon's website. "The plaintiff claimed that Amazon didn't properly warn her about the dangers they knew existed with the product, but the judge didn't agree," reports CNBC. At the time, hoverboards were all the rage; Amazon sold almost 250,000 of them over a 30-day period. The plaintiff claims the company had an obligation to warn customers properly about the dangers it knew existed. "[The plaintiff] bought the hoverboard on Amazon, the receipt came from Amazon, the box had an Amazon label and all the money was in Amazon's hands," adds CNBC. "[The plaintiff] has been unable to find the Chinese manufacturer of the device." From the report: It's the latest legal victory for Amazon, which has for years fended off litigation related to product quality and safety by arguing that, for a big and growing part of its business, it's just a marketplace. There are buyers on one end and sellers on the other -- the argument goes -- and Amazon connects them through a popular portal, facilitating the transaction with a sophisticated logistics system. The courts are reinforcing the power of Amazon's business model as the ultimate middleman. But for American consumers, there's growing cause for concern. [...] But if Amazon isn't liable when faulty products sold through its website cause personal injuries and property damage, customers are often left with no recourse. That's because it's frequently impossible for consumers to figure out who manufactured the defective product and hold that party responsible.

11 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Amazon should be responsible by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "[The plaintiff] has been unable to find the Chinese manufacturer of the device."

    If Amazon can't put the buyer in contact with the company which produced the device, then they should be liable. They sold it, they should be responsible for it. Frankly, even if they can put the person in contact, they should still be responsible, and recovering damages from the supplier should be their problem.

    We have consumer protection laws for a reason, and that reason is that not having them costs everyone money. This decision simply lets Amazon push the cost of doing business off onto the court system, which means We The People have to pay for their cost of doing business.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Amazon should be responsible by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      agree. amazon is acting like Uber, falsly saying the sellers are (the equivalent) to Uber's fiction of "contractors" not employees. Hoepfully california or another big state can fix this.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    2. Re:Amazon should be responsible by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How do classic brick & mortar retailers deal with this . . . ?

      If I march into Wallgreens and buy a bottle of vitamins, and the vitamins turn out to be a Dead Russian cocktail of ricin, polonium and nerve gas . . . is Wallgreens on the hook . . . ? Or can they say,

      "We bought a large discount lot of them on the Darknet, and don't know how to contact the seller. But the seller is liable, not us".

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    3. Re:Amazon should be responsible by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not sure I agree with THAT statement. In those cases, they would only be responsible for replacement or refund of what they sold.

      Amazon completed the sale, collected payment, and made a profit. They ARE the seller. The person they refer to as the seller on their site is actually a supplier. This is wholly different from the example of a flea market, where people are charged for space rent and then they really are the seller; they collect payment, and complete the sale.

      Amazon is the seller, they sold the item, therefore they should be responsible for the damages — which in this case dramatically exceeds the replacement/refund value of the product which they sold.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Amazon should be responsible by gnick · · Score: 4, Insightful

      IANAL, but it seems to me that Walgreen's would be responsible for their brand of vitamin but not the others. It would be responsible of them to play their part in a recall, but I don't know why they'd be on the hook for a QC fail at Dead Russian brand vitamins.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    5. Re:Amazon should be responsible by dhawton · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No, they shouldn't. It's not their responsibility. Target doesn't put me in contact with the maker of ZYX product. If it isn't a concern that they can address, they'll tell me to contact the manufacturer. If the person buying the product can't figure out who the maker is, then they shouldn't be buying it... it doesn't matter WHERE you are buying from... Ebay, Amazon, Walmart, Target... if you can't figure out who produced it, then don't buy it and keep looking. If you end up buying crap because you didn't look, then that is YOUR fault, not the marketplace's. The marketplace isn't responsible for you buying crap products, that was your choice from the very beginning. The only people pushing costs onto the court system is the customer in this case, Amazon's only obligation is to distribute recall notices, take back recalled items to return to the manufacturer, and take back defective merchandise sold by them to return back to the company, destroy or whatever else so long as it is within the return policy's time. Outside of that, it is not any marketplace's responsibility, whether it be Target or Amazon.

      The customer messed up here, they bought a very cheap product and want someone else to pay because they didn't want to do the legwork necessary both before and after the purchase. It is up to the consumer to make good choices, not Amazon nor the Government's job to babysit you and make sure you make good choices and then foot the bill when you don't.

  2. Re:Not Amazon by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I do not think the issue is Amazon in this case: it is Chinese sellers and customer protection in a globalized world in general.

    Amazon is deliberately enabling these sellers, with full knowledge that they will defraud customers. Then they are failing to maintain contact information on them that would permit customers to attempt to recoup their losses. They are willfully contributing to this illegal activity, and making literally zero effort to prevent it, which is why they should be held liable.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Welcome to the Modern World by mschwanke97402 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No one is responsible for anything, at any time, anywhere. No rules, no regulations, anything goes. You all remember voting for this, right?

  4. Re:Whenever company's do something terrible by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

    California? You must be joking. Amazon is simply not the responsible party here. The merchant has never been the responsible party. They shouldn't be. They didn't make the product.

    All this kind of nonsense will do is destroy the ability to do business. That will only drive away people that can feed money into your economy and prevent your cities from going bankrupt.

    What ever happened to whining about bottom feeding lawyers attacking whatever "deep pocket" they happen to come across?

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  5. Cheap, low quality vs burn our houses down by raymorris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Approximately nobody wants to be a scooter that will burn their house down. Especially nobody wants their next door neighbor to buy one that ends up burning down your house too.

    That's an entirely different thing from products that simply aren't well made, cheap Chinese products that break after a month of use. Sometimes I DO want a cheap product that I only need for a couple of uses. Market forces can more or less work for overall quality, though of course no system is perfect.

    Consider also the difference between these:

    1. You may not sell cheap stuff made in China.
    2. If you sell dangerously defective things, you're responsible for injuries and damages your products cause.

    There is a difference between the government deciding what you can and can't do vs the common-sense principle that you are responsible for the results of your actions.

    Here buyers are suing in civil court to recover damages caused by Amazon selling dangerously defective goods. This isn't a criminal charge, the government putting people in jail for not doing what they are told. This is a private, consensual transaction - Amazon listed scooters for sale, the consumer paid Amazon for a fun scooter. Amazon instead delivered a fire bomb. The consumer asks that Amazon compensate them for the damage caused by the item Amazon sent them.

  6. Re:Whenever company's do something terrible by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All this kind of nonsense will do is destroy the ability to do business.

    Ah the old "Europe does not exist" argument. They are responsible in Europe and they are profitable enough to continue to do business there.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.