Lawsuit Blames HP Pavilion Notebook Fire for Destroying Home

A product liability lawsuit has been filed by a Massachusetts man who says that his defective Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) laptop battery overheated and caused a fire that burned down his house.

The lawsuit was filed by John Norrie of Plymouth in Plymouth Superior Court, and transferred to U.S. District Court last week. Norrie accuses HP of designing a defective HP Pavilion Notebook, and is seeking damages in excess of $225,000 for the destruction of his home in November 2006 and for serious injuries he suffered.

Since 2005, a number of HP battery recalls have been issued for its lithium-ion batteries due to the risk of overheating. As recently as May 2009, HP issued laptop battery recalls for Pavilion Notebooks and other laptops due to the risk of the batteries rupturing and causing at least two fires resulting in property damage.

Did You Know?

Change Healthcare Data Breach Impacts Millions of Customers

A massive Change Healthcare data breach exposed the names, social security numbers, medical and personal information of potentially 100 million Americans, which have now been released on the dark web. Lawsuits are being pursued to obtain financial compensation.

Learn More

Norrie’s lawsuit charges HP with negligence and breach of warranty. In addition to the damage to the two-story house, Norrie also separated his shoulder and fell down a flight of stairs while escaping his house as it was consumed by flame. State police who investigated the fire confirmed that the blaze appeared to have been started by the overheated laptop.

HP is not the only company that has been plagued by overheating laptop problems. Last week a recall of about 22,000 Acer Aspire Notebooks was announced by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), also due to the risk of fire. The recall was sparked by three different reports Acer received indicating that the computers had short-circuited and got hot enough to melt due to a defective microphone wire.

Other overheating notebook recalls in recent years include a 2006 Dell battery recall affecting 4 million lithium-ion batteries and Sony battery recalls in 2008 that affected nearly 500,000 VAIO-TZ, Toshiba, Dell and HP notebooks.

2 Comments

  • ReenaApril 22, 2024 at 11:59 pm

    My house got burned on mach 28,2024, Cause if fire was laptop overheating and it was on my bed, can i sue to HP? Laptop was bought from costco and less than 3 months old,

  • CarrieMarch 7, 2010 at 5:57 pm

    On 1-25-10 I had just started on work on my HP Pavillion DVD6433cl laptop computer in hotel room on a business trip. All of a sudden I heard an pop like a firecracker. I looked down and I noticed that flames were shooting out the bottom of the laptop. It caught my nightgown on fire, burnt the hotel coffee table and set off the fire alarm at the hotel. I received a second degree burn on my left leg[Show More]On 1-25-10 I had just started on work on my HP Pavillion DVD6433cl laptop computer in hotel room on a business trip. All of a sudden I heard an pop like a firecracker. I looked down and I noticed that flames were shooting out the bottom of the laptop. It caught my nightgown on fire, burnt the hotel coffee table and set off the fire alarm at the hotel. I received a second degree burn on my left leg and I now have a scar on my left leg.

Share Your Comments

I authorize the above comments be posted on this page*

Want your comments reviewed by a lawyer?

To have an attorney review your comments and contact you about a potential case, provide your contact information below. This will not be published.

NOTE: Providing information for review by an attorney does not form an attorney-client relationship.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

More Top Stories

Depo-Provera Brain Tumor Warnings Added to Drug Label in Europe, But Not In U.S.
Depo-Provera Brain Tumor Warnings Added to Drug Label in Europe, But Not In U.S. (Posted 3 days ago)

A recently filed Depo-Provera lawsuit questions why Pfizer updated the drug label in Europe, to warn about the risk of meningioma brain tumors, but failed to provide the same Depo-Provera warnings to U.S. consumers and doctors.