Woman Burned By E-Cigarette Wins Lawsuit, Awarded $2 Million

About 10 percent of Americans use e-cigarettes, according to a Reuters poll. A number of people said they have been burned by the device.

A California woman sued, claiming just that and won a big payout. That woman was recently awarded almost $2 million after she was badly burned when an electronic cigarette exploded.

“When the product exploded, it shot shrapnel onto my left thigh which lit my dress on fire,” Jennifer Ries said.

Jennifer Ries said the explosion also burned her car seat back in March, 2013. She now has $1.9 million after suing the product distributor, wholesaler and store where she bought the e-cigarette. She said she was burned when she was charging the device using her car charger.

Her attorney convinced a jury that Ries was not warned that charging the electronic cigarette's lithium ion battery in her car could be dangerous and unsafe. The jury agreed that it was defective in design.

Ries isn't alone in her case. Twenty-five other cases of e-cigarettes explosions were reported, one of those is a case from Tulsa in July, 2013.

Twenty of those explosions reportedly happened while the devices were charging.