Tori Davis sued Amazon.com, Inc. and Shenzhen Baseus Technology Co., Ltd. after a Baseus Magnetic Power Bank she purchased through Amazon spontaneously ignited while charging in her vehicle on March 9, 2024. Davis alleged the fire caused physical injuries to herself and her three minor children, destroyed personal property inside the vehicle, and destroyed the vehicle itself. She brought claims under the Louisiana Products Liability Act, Louisiana redhibition law, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, and several other theories.
The ruling turns heavily on Pickard v. Amazon.com, Inc., 387 So.3d 515 (La. 2024), a Louisiana Supreme Court decision the court ordered the parties to brief after initial briefing was complete. In Pickard, which arose from a rechargeable battery charger purchased on Amazon that caught fire and burned down the buyer's home, causing his death, the Louisiana Supreme Court held that an online marketplace operator is a seller under the LPLA when it did not hold title to the product but had physical custody of the product in its distribution warehouse and controlled the process of the transaction and delivery. The Louisiana Supreme Court also held that Amazon, as the seller of a foreign manufacturer's product, exercised control and possession over the product and is considered a seller under the LPLA's statutory language.
On the negligence count, Judge Susie Morgan held that Davis failed to plead a negligent undertaking claim under the standard Pickard established. The Louisiana Supreme Court's answer to the second certified question in Pickard established that a negligent undertaking claim requires an affirmative or positive assumption of a duty, plus an allegation that the defendant's failure to exercise reasonable care increased the risk of harm, that the defendant undertook a duty owed by another, or that the plaintiff relied on the defendant to perform the duty. The court found none of those allegations appeared in Davis's operative complaint — only in her opposition brief — and dismissed Count 2 with prejudice. The court also dismissed a declaratory-relief count as duplicative of the determinations to be made in resolving the redhibition claim.
The redhibition claim survived. The court held that Davis plausibly alleged the power bank contained a defect at the time of sale — it ignited days after purchase — rendering it unfit for its intended purpose as a portable charger. On Amazon's argument that Davis failed to plead pre-suit notice and an opportunity to repair, the court pointed to La. Civ. Code art. 2522, which excuses that requirement when the seller is alleged to have knowledge of the defect. Davis alleged Amazon had constructive and actual knowledge of the defect before the sale yet failed to remove the listing, warn purchasers, or stop fulfillment from its warehouses, and that Amazon maintained access to product returns data, customer complaints, and similar incident information reflecting overheating and fire risk. The court also noted that the product's destruction in the fire independently supported excusing the notice-and-repair requirement. Because Amazon's motion to dismiss the Magnuson-Moss claim rested entirely on the failure of the redhibition claim, that count survived as well.
The court denied as moot Amazon's motion to dismiss counts styled as negligence per se under the Consumer Product Safety Act and deceptive and unfair trade practices, because Davis acknowledged those counts did not assert independent causes of action but were offered as evidence supporting her other theories.