San Francisco Man's Lawsuit Claims Samsung Galaxy S6 Phones Explode Too
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- A San Francisco man is a plaintiff in a new lawsuit that claims older Samsung models -- other than the Galaxy Note 7 which has been recalled and banned from planes -- are also exploding.
His phone has a similar lithium ion battery found in the Note 7 -- that has been blamed for causing multiple phones to blow up.
He has evidence that two Samsung Galaxy S6 phones have blown up. Both are not part of Samsung's recent recall and the ban from planes.
San Francisco resident Demetrius Martin said, "At one point my colleague put down the phone and said you know this is actually too hot to hold against my head and he put it down plugged it in and that's when it caught fire on the desk - his home desk and he knocked it off of the desk and it landed on the rug -- of course causing a fire on the rug."
Martin bought the phone for one of his employees at his theater production company. He was on the other end of the line when this happened.
He's one of the plaintiffs in the nation's first class-action lawsuit that identifies other models as dangerous - the S6, S7 and Note 5.
Attorney Gene Stonebarger said, "Consumers should not have to live in fear that they're walking around with a ticking time bomb in their pocket or that or that their phone is going to catch on fire and burst into flames in the middle of the night when they sleep."
The lawsuit filed by a firm in Folsom seeks reimbursement and a recall.
Stonebarger said, "Samsung has been aware of problems and dangers of their lithium ion batteries going back years."
It happened to Martin's phone in late 2015.
Martin said, "I think it's important, that we can't lack on safety. It's one of these things where I want more people to realize that these things are volatile, they still use chemicals in the batteries and the safety is number one."
This suit applies to people who bought phones in California over the last four years.
Today Samsung said in a statement that it does not comment on pending litigation -- but it stressed that issues with the Galaxy Note 7 are isolated to only that model.
