Amazon’s Marketplace Could Be Forever Changed by One Exploding Hoverboard

Hi folks, it’s Brad. Like a lot of other kids over the holiday season of 2015, 9-year-old Ethan Ritter received a hoverboard, one of those two-wheeled self-balancing scooters that have since passed mercifully out of vogue. On New Year’s Day, while charging in his mother’s bedroom in Oroville, California, the lithium ion battery inside the device exploded, engulfing the bed, blinds and sheets in flames and burning the boy’s mother on her hand and feet as she tried to extinguish the fire, the family alleges.

The hoverboard had been purchased from an independent seller called TurnUpUp on Amazon.com Inc.’s fast-growing marketplace. Because the seller is based in China and presumably out of legal reach, Ritter’s family sued Amazon, claiming it should be held responsible for facilitating the sale and earning a 15 percent fee. Amazon argued it acted merely as an online mall and was not at fault.