E-Cigarette and Vaping Product Injury Claims — Product Liability Law

## Vaping Product Injuries and Your Legal Rights

E-cigarettes and vaping devices have generated a new category of product liability claims involving battery explosions, lung injury from inhaled substances, and addiction-related harm. The vaping industry grew rapidly with limited regulatory oversight, and multiple categories of product defects have injured thousands of consumers — many of them young adults who began vaping before the health risks were understood or disclosed.

EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping product use–associated lung injury) hospitalized nearly 2,800 Americans and killed 68 before the CDC identified vitamin E acetate in THC cartridges as the primary culprit — a failure-to-warn case against THC cartridge manufacturers and retailers.

Categories of Vaping Product Liability Claims

**Battery explosion defects:** Lithium-ion batteries in vaping devices can vent, rupture, or explode when overcharged, shorted, or improperly assembled. These explosions have caused facial burns, lost teeth, eye injuries, and hand amputations. The battery, the device casing, and the charging system design may all be implicated.
**Lung injury from inhaled substances:** Diacetyl, vitamin E acetate, heavy metals from heating coils, and other chemicals inhaled through vaping devices have caused serious respiratory conditions, including popcorn lung (bronchiolitis obliterans) and EVALI.
**Nicotine addiction in minors:** Juul Labs paid $1.2 billion to resolve claims that it designed marketing to attract underage users and engineered its products to deliver addictive nicotine doses exceeding safe levels.
**Failure to warn:** Manufacturers who did not disclose known inhalation risks, battery safety limitations, or chemical compositions of aerosols face failure-to-warn claims from injured consumers.

Building a Vaping Injury Claim

Preserve the device, pod, and charger exactly as they were at the time of injury — do not attempt repairs or modifications
Photograph the device damage and your injuries immediately
Seek medical evaluation with complete documentation of your respiratory symptoms, burns, or other harm
Connect your specific device to its manufacturer through model number, serial number, and purchase receipts
Research whether your device has been subject to CPSC or FDA enforcement actions
Consult a product liability attorney who has handled vaping industry cases — this area of law is evolving rapidly, and new litigation vehicles are opening as regulatory documents become available through discovery