April 28, 2026
The NYC FDNY reported a record number of lithium-ion battery fires last year, and the trend is showing up everywhere else — including Metro Detroit. If a battery fire hurt you or destroyed your property, you have more options than you think.
Most of these fires trace back to a few root causes: cheap aftermarket batteries with no UL listing, mismatched chargers, physical damage from drops or crashes, and counterfeit cells inside batteries that look real on the outside. Thermal runaway is the technical term. The cell heats, ignites the next cell, and within seconds the whole pack is a 1,500-degree blowtorch.
Most consumers have no idea their replacement battery was made in a no-name factory and resold under three different brands. We do the forensics.
Product liability cases on these fires can name: the e-bike or e-scooter manufacturer, the battery cell maker, the battery pack assembler, the charger manufacturer, the retailer who sold it (especially if it's a major e-commerce platform), and any installer or repair shop that worked on it. Most of these defendants point at each other.
Michigan product liability law lets us pursue all of them simultaneously and let the jury sort out the apportionment. We don't have to pick one and hope.
Lithium battery fires aren't ordinary fires. They burn faster, hotter, and put out toxic hydrogen fluoride gas. Second- and third-degree burns to the hands, face, and respiratory tract are routine. Skin grafts, reconstructive surgery, and years of follow-up care are common.
These aren't small cases. We've seen verdicts and settlements in seven and eight figures when a lithium fire causes serious burn injuries or kills someone.
If an e-bike battery torched your apartment or house, your homeowners or renters insurance probably covered the first wave. But your insurer can subrogate against the bike manufacturer. And you may have an independent claim for personal injuries, lost wages, displacement costs, and items your policy didn't cover.
Landlords are also showing up as defendants in apartment fires — especially if they knew tenants were charging high-capacity batteries indoors and didn't do anything about it.
The single biggest evidence mistake in these cases is letting the fire department or your insurer haul away the remains of the device. Before anything moves, photograph it in place. Then have it stored in a secure, dry location. The metallurgy and burn pattern on the remains are 90 percent of how we prove the case.
If the fire department already took it, don't panic — call us. We know how to subpoena and preserve evidence from FD evidence rooms.
If a lithium-ion battery in an e-bike, e-scooter, hoverboard, power tool, or even a phone caused a fire that hurt you or burned your property, we want to hear from you. These cases are technical, expensive to investigate, and often life-changing in value.
Free consultation. No fee unless we win. Talk to a real attorney today.
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