Life’s Not So Good For LG As Phone Fire Earns Woman £150k

A fire is a bad thing until it’s one that can fetch a fat money lawsuit. It’s still a bad thing, but at least you, your insurance company, and your lawyer are all smiling. That's the case of a woman in Coatbridge, whose LG K8 smartphone burst into flames.

The blaze wrecked her living room and sent her to hospital for smoke inhalation. The incident landed LG in court, where the judge has now agreed that the phone was actually defective. The said woman is now £150,000 richer for it. Well, sort of.

The case of Denise Parks' house fire and LG explained

Nearly seven years ago, on 31 October 2018, Denise Parks and her husband, Robert, were asleep in their home in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire. In the living room, a few devices were left charging on the couch, which included a Samsung Galaxy S7, a laptop, and an LG K8 smartphone. At about 3 AM, a fire broke out in that same room.

The couple woke up to the smell and danger of smoke. The fire damaged their living room, and Denise suffered from smoke inhalation. She already had a history of panic attacks and anxiety, but the incident made those conditions worse, and she ended up missing work from 2 November 2018 to 7 February 2019.

An investigation followed, and at the Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Sheriff Robert Fife ruled that the LG K8 was the source of the fire. Importantly, he noted that the phone was being charged with a suitable charger.

It was also in normal use and in conditions where a standard product should not have failed. This led the court to conclude that the phone was defective and did not meet the safety standards that consumers are entitled to expect.

Denise took legal action against LG Electronics UK Ltd., seeking damages for the injury, distress, and losses caused by the fire. As expected, LG contested the claim.

No corporation would admit to making defective products, especially when it will open the door to more lawsuits, bad press, potential recalls, and in some cases even deeper government investigations.

But on the balance of probabilities, the court sided with Denise. In the judgment, she was awarded £149,496 in damages. However, more than £140,000 of that went to her insurance company under a subrogated loss claim.

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Why Denise's insurer went home with the bag

After the fire, Denise’s unnamed insurer had already paid out her claim for the damage to her home. In subrogation, the insurer basically inherits the right to sue the party responsible so they can recover what they paid to the insured.

So when she won her case against LG, the bulk of the award reimbursed her insurer, while she kept the remaining portion for her personal damages.

This case wrapped up years after the fire, and by the time the ruling came in, LG had already shut down its smartphone business in 2021 after struggling to compete with other brands. It must have been quite a blow to be punished for a product line that no longer even existed. 

The delay was most likely due to lengthy investigations, LG contesting the claim, court backlogs, and pandemic disruption. These things tend to last into years or even nearly a decade.