HOUSTON – A Texas woman is suing Amazon after her one-year-old daughter purportedly ate a button battery from a generic Apple TV remote control that was sold by the company’s Web site.
Recent Houston federal court records show that Morgan Gartner filed a product liability lawsuit on June 29.
According to the suit, the child, identified by her initials E.G., ingested the part last Apr. 17. It adds the battery “became lodged in her esophagus.”
“The electric current from the battery combined with saliva to form a corrosive alkaline,” the original petition says. “After realizing she had ingested the button battery, E.G.’s parents rushed her to the hospital emergency room where it was extracted.”
Gartner says the toddler suffered severe tissue damage to her esophagus.
Court papers assert Gartner and her husband unknowingly purchase the remote that “was designed with a dangerous flaw,” adding “the battery compartment on the back of the remote was designed to easily open, revealing a small lithium button battery which invariably comes loose and falls out.”
The device’s supposed seller, Chinese national Hu Xi Jie, joins Amazon as a co-defendant in the litigation.
Consequently, Gartner seeks unspecified monetary damages and a jury trial.
She is represented by Jeff. M. Meyerson of The Meyerson Law Firm, P.C. in Austin.
Houston Division of the Southern District of Texas Case No. 4:18-CV-2242