A resident of Long Island has filed a lawsuit against Samsung, claiming her Galaxy Note 9 caught on fire in an elevator. This is the first reported case of a Note 9 catching fire, according to Samsung
Reports have emerged of a Galaxy Note 9, Samsung’s latest flagship, having caught fire. The incident, reported by New York Post, was reported by Diane Chung, a Long Island resident, who claimed that the phone caught fire inside her purse. Chung has filed a lawsuit against Samsung in the Queens Supreme Court, seeking damages from the South Korean firm, as well as a restraining order on the sale of Note 9.
According to the lawsuit, Chung, a real estate agent, was in an elevator soon after midnight on September 3, when she felt her Galaxy Note 9 ‘become extremely hot’. Following this, she decided to stop using the phone, and kept it in her purse.
Soon after, she claimed hearing a ‘whistling and screeching sound’, as well as ‘thick smoke’ that began to appear from her bag.
As per the lawsuit, Chung placed the bag on the elevator floor, as she attempted to pull out her smoking Samsung phone, burning her fingers in the process. She claims she was trapped alone in the elevator with the burning Galaxy Note 9, and was ‘extremely panicked’.
In addition, she said that the thick smoke made it tough to see, and she began to smash elevator buttons. As she reached the lobby, Chung threw the phone out of the elevator, but the phone did not stop burning. This continued until a good Samaritan picked the Note 9 with a cloth, and immersed it into a bucket of water. Calling the experience ‘traumatic’, Chung’s lawsuit states that she was unable to call clients, while the Samsung flagship also ruined the contents of her bag.
Samsung in response has claimed that this is the first incident reported of Galaxy Note 9 catching fire that it has known about. Soon after its launch, top Samsung officials, including CEO Koh Dong-jin, have reportedly claimed that the Note 9 comes with multi-step ‘battery safety check’, ensuring that the phone would ‘absolutely not’ catch fire.
Previously, the company has faced criticism for its Galaxy Note 7, where several cases of random ignition forced a recall of 2.5 million phones. Samsung was eventually forced to kill the Galaxy Note 7 line.
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