LG Chem Out of E-Cig Battery Explosion Lawsuits in Two States

South Korean battery maker LG Chem Ltd. escaped lawsuits over e-cigarette battery explosions in Arizona and Washington state because it didn’t direct activity to either place that would allow for jurisdiction over it, according to decisions by the Ninth Circuit and the Washington Court of Appeals.

The pair of appellate decisions Monday joins a trend of electronic cigarette explosion cases in which LG’s alleged role in getting lithium ion batteries into users’ hands is too attenuated for jurisdiction. LG sometimes denies that it packages the batteries for e-cigarette use at all, as in the Washington case.

But the Ohio Supreme ...