Across the country, hoverboards have been bursting into flames during the charging process, in some cases damaging or destroying homes and even resulting in deaths. Recently, a manufacturer recalled 53,000 scooters/hoverboards with lithium-ion battery packs. (Read the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recall notice) 

Kline & Specter attorneys have filed suit in federal court against the seller and manufacturer of a hoverboard that caught fire while charging and caused the deaths of two young sisters as flames leveled their family home in Hellertown, Pa., in April 2022.

If you or a loved one suffered severe injury or death believed due to a fire started by a hoverboard, you may have grounds for a lawsuit. Kline & Specter, with more than 50 attorneys, including five who are also medical doctors – the most in the nation, has the experience and expertise to litigate hoverboard cases.

In the litigation involving the Hellertown fire, the lawsuit alleges that the hoverboard marketed primarily to children had a “defective and unreasonably dangerous design.” It further claims the manufacturer knew or should have known the product can short-circuit and cause fires while charging but that marketing and sales of the hoverboard continued.

The suit alleges the defendants “knowingly, purposely and consciously concealed their knowledge of these serious dangers.” Also, it states that the manufacturer’s manual and website fail to acknowledge the risk.

The law firm’s investigation discovered that the hoverboard’s batteries were subject to short circuits and degradation through self-discharge. The lawsuit also asserts that adequate testing of the product was not performed before distribution and sale.

Several years ago, a fire believed ignited by a charging hoverboard killed a toddler and critically injured two other children in Harrisburg, Pa. A family in Nashville saw their home destroyed in 2016, with a hoverboard the suspected cause. And a family in Washington, D.C., was displaced following a fire at their house that was blamed on a hoverboard that caught fire as it was charging. Currently the firm represents a family in a double fatality that occurred in Michign.

Kline & Specter has a long history of attaining multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements – and one billion-dollar verdict – in product liability cases against major corporations.

For instance, Shanin Specter won verdicts of $153 million, $52 million and $8.75 million against Ford Motor Co. over defective pickup truck parking brakes that caused the deaths of two people.

The firm won a series of large verdicts in trials over implanted defective vaginal mesh products -- including verdicts of $41 million, $57.1 million, $80 million and $120 million -- and eventually settled hundreds of cases over that defective product.

In cases against the maker of the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal, Tom Kline won an $8 billion punitive damages verdict that led to the settlement of thousands of other cases in which the drug injured boys and young men..

Kline & Specter handles cases in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and New York and in cases outside those states, where the firm works with local attorneys in each state, as applicable.

 

Kline & Specter Hoverboard News: 

 

Tom Kline comments on hoverboard recall, WNBC 4/4/23-4pm; WNBC 4/4/23-5pm

Tom Kline comments on hoverboard recall, Business Insider, 4/3/23; Philly Voice, 3/31/23

Tom Kline and lawyers from Kline & Specter file suit in hoverboard death case near Allentown, Pennsylvania: WFMZ-TV, 9/21/22; Fox 43, 9/21/22; Fox 29, 9/21/22; The Morning Call, 9/21/22; The Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/21/22; Lehigh Valley Live, 9/21/22; Law360, 9/21/22