Amazon could be held liable for defective products sold at its Marketplace in California, a higher appeal decided Thursday. The California Fourth District Court of Appeals reversed a 2019 court ruling and resubmitted claims from a woman who says she suffered from third-party fires when a defective laptop battery she bought from a seller of third party on Amazon caught fire.
The decision could have dire consequences for Amazon, which has been claiming for years that it only serves as an intermediary between third-party buyers and sellers on the Marketplace portion of its platform. That position has protected Amazon from liability for Marketplace products, that is, until now. The company is now dealing with several other lawsuits over defective products in other courts.
Angela Bolger says she bought a replacement laptop battery on Amazon from E-Life, a fictitious company name for Lenoge Technology Ltd., which supplied the battery to her in packaging with Amazon’s brand. Several months later, Bolger claims, the battery exploded. She says she was never notified of security concerns that led to E-Life being banned from Amazon’s platform.
A lower court ruled in 2019 that Amazon was not under the product liability laws. The trial court also ruled that the Communications Decency Act would not have protected the company from Bolger’s claims under California state law. Bolger appealed that ruling, arguing that in California, strict liability does not only depend on whether a sale was made.
In its ruling, the appeals court said that Amazon was central in the sale of laptop battery in the Bolger case. “Whatever term we use to describe the role of Amazon, whether it be ‘retailer’, ‘distributor’, if only ‘facilitator’, it was very important to bring the product here to the consumer,” the court wrote . Amazon should be liable if a product on its website is defective, the court added.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
