IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA
No. COA25-268
Filed 18 February 2026
Union County, Nos. 21CVS000440-890, 22CVS000890-890
STEPHEN C. WEAVER, Plaintiff,
v.
AMV HOLDINGS LLC and MVRB2, LLC, Defendants.
MEDUSA DISTRIBUTION, LLC, Defendant.
Appeal by plaintiff from orders entered 18 July 2023 and 5 August 2024 by
Judge Daniel A. Kuehnert in Union County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of
Appeals 19 November 2025.
Dowling PLLC, by Troy D. Shelton; Wilson, Lackey, Rohr & Hall, P.C., by Destin C. Hall; and The Paynter Law Firm, PLLC, by Stuart M. Paynter and Sara Willingham, for plaintiff-appellant.
The Duggan Law Firm, PC, by Christopher M. Duggan, for defendants- appellees AMV Holdings LLC and MVRB2, LLC.
Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker LLP, by Michael S. Rothrock and Peter Clements, for defendant-appellee Medusa Distribution, LLC.
ZACHARY, Judge. WEAVER V. AMV HOLDINGS, LLC
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiff Stephen C. Weaver suffered serious injuries when a lithium-ion cell
battery intended for use in his vaping device exploded in his pocket. Following an
unsuccessful suit to recover his damages, Plaintiff now appeals from 1) the trial
court’s order granting partial summary judgment in favor of Defendants AMV
Holdings LLC and MVRB2, LLC (collectively “AMV Defendants”) on Plaintiff’s
punitive damages claim, and 2) the court’s order granting summary judgment on
behalf of AMV Defendants and Defendant Medusa Distribution, LLC (“Medusa”) on
Plaintiff’s remaining claims. After careful review, we determine that Plaintiff’s claims
are governed by the North Carolina Products Liability Act and that Plaintiff cannot
surmount Defendants’ “sealed container” defense under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 99B-2(a)
(2023). Accordingly, we affirm the orders of the trial court.
I. Background
On 12 April 2019, Plaintiff owned a residential floor and tile business. Plaintiff
had recently begun using a “vaping” device—which vaporizes a liquid mixture of
nicotine, flavoring, propylene glycol, and other additives for inhalation—as an
alternative to smoking. To power the device, Plaintiff had purchased two 21700
cylindrical lithium-ion cell (“CLC”) batteries and one 18650 CLC battery. As Plaintiff
worked at a job site, one of the 21700 CLC batteries “experienced a ‘thermal runaway’
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event while . . . in [Plaintiff’s] pants pocket.”1 The resulting flames and chemicals
severely burned Plaintiff’s leg and hand, causing serious, permanent injuries.
Plaintiff filed a complaint on 22 February 2021 against AMV Holdings LLC
and MadVapes Franchising, LLC. On 30 August 2021, Plaintiff filed a First Amended
Complaint, which replaced MadVapes Franchising, LLC, with “MVRB2, LLC.” In the
First Amended Complaint, Plaintiff alleged that he had purchased the CLC
batteries—including the defective battery—from MadVapes stores owned and
operated by AMV Defendants in North Carolina. Plaintiff further alleged that the
batteries came in “plain white boxes”; that neither the vaping device nor the batteries
“came with written warnings that the batteries could spontaneously catch fire and
explode”; and that no MadVapes employee warned him of the danger of a spontaneous
explosion. Plaintiff raised three claims against AMV Defendants: inadequate
warning or instruction under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 99B-1, et seq.; negligence; and breach
of the implied warranty of merchantability for a particular purpose under N.C. Gen.
Stat. § 25-2-315.
On 20 December 2021, AMV Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment,
asserting that “all of Plaintiff’s claims against . . . AMV Defendants . . . are barred by
the sealed container doctrine enumerated at N.C. Gen. Stat. §[ ]99B-2(a)” of the North
1 The trial court provided a definition of “thermal runaway event” in its findings of fact: “A
[CLC] battery ‘thermal runaway event’ has been described as an explosive event where the battery heats to extremely high temperatures, melts, burns, disintegrates, and becomes like a flame-thrower.”
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Carolina Products Liability Act. AMV Defendants asserted that Plaintiff had
proffered no evidence to indicate that AMV Defendants could have discovered prior
to sale that the battery in question had the “internal manufacturing defect” identified
by Plaintiff’s expert as the cause of the explosion. In response, Plaintiff filed a “Rule
56(f) motion to refuse or continue [the] motion for summary judgment” pending
further discovery. Following a hearing, on 7 February 2022, the trial court entered
an order, inter alia, denying AMV Defendants’ motion for summary judgment and
denying Plaintiff’s motion as moot.
Plaintiff moved to further amend his complaint, which the trial court granted
by order entered on 19 April 2022. In the Second Amended Complaint, filed on 27
April 2022, Plaintiff added a claim for gross negligence, alleging that AMV
Defendants were “grossly negligent, careless, and reckless” by failing to warn
Plaintiff “of the risk and danger of exploding” CLC batteries and by selling a battery
that they knew “was inappropriate and not intended for use in vaping devices and
posed an unreasonable risk of spontaneously catching fire and/or violently exploding
without warning.”
Additionally, on 1 April 2022, Plaintiff filed a separate complaint against
Medusa, the distributor from which AMV Defendants purchased the CLC batteries.
Plaintiff raised five claims: inadequate warning or instruction under N.C. Gen. Stat.
§ 99B-1, et seq.; negligence; gross negligence; breach of the implied warranty of
merchantability for a particular purpose under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 25-2-315; and, in
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the alternative, breach of the implied warranty of merchantability under N.C. Gen.
Stat. § 25-2-314.
AMV Defendants filed their answer to the Second Amended Complaint on 27
May 2022, generally denying Plaintiff’s allegations and advancing 21 affirmative
defenses. As one of these defenses, AMV Defendants again contended that Plaintiff’s
claims were barred by the Products Liability Act.
On 1 September 2022, the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court
designated Plaintiff’s suit against AMV Defendants as “exceptional” under Rule 2.1
of the General Rules of Practice for the Superior and District Courts and assigned the
matter to Judge Daniel A. Kuehnert. On 16 May 2023, the trial court entered an order
granting Defendants’ joint motion to consolidate the actions pursuant to Rule 42
pending a Rule 2.1 designation in the suit against Medusa; the suit was so designated
on 19 May 2023, and the actions were consolidated.
On 14 February 2023, AMV Defendants moved for partial summary judgment
as to Plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages. On 18 July 2023, the trial court entered
an order granting this motion. In sum, the court determined that Plaintiff had failed
to forecast clear and convincing evidence—when viewed in the light most favorable
to Plaintiff—of one or more of the requisite aggravating factors enumerated in N.C.
Gen. Stat. § 1D-15.
Plaintiff filed a First Amended Complaint against Medusa on 7 June 2024, in
which he raised two additional claims: unfair and deceptive trade practices under
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N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-1.1, et seq., and punitive damages under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1D-1,
et seq.
On 7 June 2024, AMV Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment as to
Plaintiff’s remaining claims. Medusa filed an amended motion for summary judgment
dated 24 June 2024. Medusa also filed an answer and affirmative defenses in
response to Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint on 24 June 2024.
On 5 August 2024, the trial court entered an order, inter alia, granting all
Defendants’ motions for summary judgment. In its order, the court set forth an in-
depth analysis of two issues raised in this case: Plaintiff’s failure-to-warn claim and
the sealed container defense invoked by Defendants. Regarding the former, the court
concluded that Plaintiff’s evidence “fail[ed] to show that the subject battery . . .
created an unreasonably dangerous condition or posed a substantial risk of harm
such as would satisfy either [N.C. Gen. Stat.] § 99B-5(a)(1) or § 99B-5(a)(2).” The court
emphasized that the explosion was caused by a “latent, internal manufacturing
defect,” instead of the “external short circuit risks” upon which Plaintiff’s failure-to-
warn claim focused.
Regarding the sealed container defense, the trial court noted that, even if
Plaintiff did not receive the battery in a sealed container, his own expert testified
that “the latent, internal manufacturing defect could only be identified through a CT
scan and expert analysis. There [was] no forecasted evidence that it was reasonable
for Defendants to have had CT scan equipment and experts necessary to detect this
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latent, internal manufacturing defect.” Responding to Plaintiff’s argument that the
sealed container defense is inapplicable where the manufacturer is not subject to the
jurisdiction of North Carolina’s courts, the trial court characterized this as an
“exception to”—rather than an element of—the affirmative defense and placed the
burden on Plaintiff to produce evidence of lack of jurisdiction, which it found that
Plaintiff had failed to meet.
Plaintiff filed timely notice of appeal from the order granting Defendants’
motion for partial summary judgment on Plaintiff’s punitive damages claim and from
the order granting Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on Plaintiff’s
remaining claims.
II. Discussion
Plaintiff raises three issues on appeal: whether the trial court erred in (1)
dismissing his failure-to-warn claim; (2) granting summary judgment for Defendants
on their sealed container defense; and (3) dismissing his remaining claims. For the
following reasons, we conclude that each of Plaintiff’s claims against Defendants is
barred by the sealed container defense.
A. Standard of Review
It is axiomatic that “to succeed in a summary judgment motion, the movant
has the burden of showing, based on pleadings, depositions, answers, admissions, and
affidavits, that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the movant is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Nicholson v. Amer. Safety Utility Corp., 124
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N.C. App. 59, 63, 476 S.E.2d 672, 675 (1996) (cleaned up), aff’d as modified, 346 N.C.
767, 488 S.E.2d 240 (1997). “Summary judgment is appropriate only when it appears
that even if the facts as claimed by the non-movant are taken as true, there can be
no recovery, with the non-movant’s materials being indulgently regarded and the
movant’s closely scrutinized.” Id. (cleaned up). “The showing required for summary
judgment may be accomplished by proving an essential element of the opposing
party’s claim . . . would be barred by an affirmative defense.” Dobson v. Harris, 352
N.C. 77, 83, 530 S.E.2d 829, 835 (2000).
B. Products Liability Act
Chapter 99B of the North Carolina General Statutes is known as the “Products
Liability Act.” In sum, the Products Liability Act subjects the seller or distributor of
a defective product to liability for harm to persons or property resulting from the
defective product.
The Products Liability Act defines the term “[p]roduct liability action” as “any
action brought for or on account of personal injury, death or property damage caused
by or resulting from the manufacture, construction, design, formulation, development
of standards, preparation, processing, assembly, testing, listing, certifying, warning,
instructing, marketing, selling, advertising, packaging, or labeling of any product.”
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 99B-1(3). “A products liability claim normally contemplates injury
or damage caused by a defective product” for which “recovery is premised on either
negligence or on the contract principles of warranty.” Red Hill Hosiery Mill, Inc. v.
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Magnetek, Inc., 138 N.C. App. 70, 74–75, 530 S.E.2d 321, 325, disc. review denied, 353
N.C. 268, 546 S.E.2d 112 (2000).
In the present case, all of Plaintiff’s claims against Defendants fall within the
scope of the Products Liability Act. In his separate complaints, Plaintiff advanced
claims for negligence, gross negligence, inadequate warning or instruction under the
Products Liability Act, breach of the implied warranty of merchantability, and breach
of the implied warranty of merchantability for a particular purpose.2 These claims
arise from “personal injury . . . caused by or resulting from the manufacture . . . of
any product,”—namely, the vaping device—and as such are governed by the Products
Liability Act. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 99B-1(3); see also Red Hill, 138 N.C. App. at 74–75,
530 S.E.2d at 325–26 (concluding that claims for breach of implied warranty of
merchantability and negligence constituted products liability claims); Morgan v.
Cavalier Acquisition Corp., 111 N.C. App. 520, 524, 527, 432 S.E.2d 915, 917, 919
(concluding that claims for negligence, breach of implied warranty, and strict liability
constituted products liability claims), disc. review denied, 335 N.C. 238, 439 S.E.2d
149 (1993); Crews v. W.A. Brown & Son, 106 N.C. App. 324, 328, 416 S.E.2d 924, 927–
28 (1992) (concluding that claims for negligence, failure to provide adequate
2 Plaintiff also alleged that Medusa engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices under N.C.
Gen. Stat. § 75-1.1, et seq. We do not address whether this claim constitutes a products liability action, in that Plaintiff’s briefs are bereft of any argument concerning this claim. Consequently, we deem the claim abandoned. See N.C.R. App. P. 28(a) (“The scope of review on appeal is limited to issues so presented in the several briefs. Issues not presented and discussed in a party’s brief are deemed abandoned.”).
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warnings, breach of express warranties, and breach of implied warranties of
merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose constituted products liability
claims).
C. Sealed Container Defense
The Products Liability Act prohibits holding sellers or distributors strictly
liable for harm and sets forth defenses to products liability claims. N.C. Gen. Stat.
§§ 99B-1.1, 99B-2. In the case at bar, the dispositive issue is whether Plaintiff’s claims
are defeated by the sealed container defense of the Products Liability Act. This
defense bars a products liability claim where (1) “the product was acquired and sold
by the seller in a sealed container” or (2) “the product was acquired and sold by the
seller under circumstances in which the seller was afforded no reasonable
opportunity to inspect the product in such a manner that would have or should have,
in the exercise of reasonable care, revealed the existence of the condition complained
of.” Id. § 99B-2(a).
In the instant case, the parties debate at length whether Plaintiff purchased
the battery in a “sealed container,” with Plaintiff alleging that “when [MadVapes]
received the batteries, . . . [they were] in white cardboard sleeves that could be
opened. The boxes were not sealed or taped shut.” Yet, the crux of the controversy
before us is whether Defendants were afforded a “reasonable opportunity to inspect
the product in such a manner that would have or should have, in the exercise of
reasonable care, revealed the existence of the condition complained of.” Id.
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In its order, the trial court found that Plaintiff’s injuries resulted from a
“latent, internal manufacturing defect.” Plaintiff does not contest this aspect of the
order, nor does he contend that any Defendant, in the reasonable exercise of care,
should have uncovered the latent defect in the CLC battery. Therefore, on the facts
before us in the instant case, we conclude that it would be unreasonable to expect a
distributor or seller of CLC batteries to disassemble, closely inspect, and submit each
battery to expert testing as would be necessary to determine the existence of a latent
manufacturing defect such as that in the battery in question.
D. Exception to Sealed Container Defense
Nevertheless, Plaintiff maintains that Defendants are barred from asserting
the sealed container defense because the Products Liability Act includes the proviso
that this defense “shall not apply if the manufacturer of the product is not subject to
the jurisdiction of the courts of this State or if such manufacturer has been judicially
declared insolvent.” Id. Plaintiff argues that it was error for the trial court to conclude
that “the burden of proving the exception in section 99B-2(a) . . . rested with
[Plaintiff],” and moreover, even if he properly bore such burden, the sealed container
defense is inapplicable in this instance because “[t]he forecast of evidence show[ed]
that the courts of North Carolina do not have personal jurisdiction over the
manufacturer.”3 We disagree.
3 The manufacturer’s insolvency is not argued by any party on appeal.
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It is well established that with regard to “an affirmative defense, the burden
of proof lies with the defendant.” Price v. Conley, 21 N.C. App. 326, 328, 204 S.E.2d
178, 180 (1974). Indeed, Defendants do not dispute that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 99B-2(a)
constitutes an affirmative defense in part and that they bear the burden of
demonstrating that they had no reasonable opportunity to inspect the CLC battery.
Rather, the disagreement arises over which party bears the burden of proving that
“the manufacturer . . . is not subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of this State.”
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 99B-2(a).
The first question before us on this issue is whether the jurisdiction clause
serves as an exception to, or an element of, the affirmative defense. This Court has
long held that “[t]he party seeking the benefit of the [statutory] exception bears the
burden of establishing that they fit squarely within the exception.” Good Hope Hosp.,
Inc. v. N.C. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Servs., 175 N.C. App. 309, 312, 623 S.E.2d 315,
318 (citation omitted), aff’d, 360 N.C. 641, 636 S.E.2d 564 (2006). Here, the party
benefiting from the potential exception is Plaintiff, given that the sealed container
defense would be unavailable to Defendants if the exception applied. Accordingly,
Plaintiff would properly bear the burden of proving that the manufacturer of the
defective battery is not subject to the jurisdiction of North Carolina’s courts if we
interpret this clause to be an exception to, instead of an element of, the sealed
container defense.
“When interpreting a statute, we must apply the rules of statutory
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construction. The principal rule of statutory construction is that the legislature’s
intent controls. That intent may be inferred from the nature and purpose of the
statute, and the consequences which would follow, respectively, from various
constructions.” Id. at 311–12, 623 S.E.2d at 318 (cleaned up).
“[I]n undertaking to determine what is and what is not an affirmative defense,”
the answer “depends ultimately on broad considerations of policy.” Speas v.
Merchants’ Bank & Tr. Co. of Winston-Salem, 188 N.C. 524, 531, 125 S.E. 398, 402
(1924) (citation omitted). The Products Liability Act is primarily based on the policy
of consumer protection, which is achieved by holding manufacturers, distributors,
and sellers accountable for injuries caused by defective products. The sealed
container defense, on the other hand, seeks to balance the interests of the parties, in
part by protecting sellers who could not reasonably be expected to know of a given
product’s defective nature. Notably, however, this defense does not apply where the
manufacturer, who would normally be the liable party, is insolvent or beyond the
jurisdiction of North Carolina’s courts, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 99B-2(a), thus rendering
these exceptions to the sealed container defense. As such, the plaintiff bears the
burden of demonstrating that one of these exceptions applies to the facts at hand.
To this end, Plaintiff contends in the alternative that “[t]he forecast of evidence
shows that the courts of North Carolina do not have personal jurisdiction over the
manufacturer of the exploding battery.” Again, we disagree.
Plaintiff’s entire argument rests on a series of assumptions. First, Plaintiff
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asserts that because “[t]he batteries were acquired by a Chinese distributor named
ECIG Fiend . . . , then sold and shipped to Medusa by the Chinese distributor in New
Jersey[,] [t]he only plausible inference from the evidence is that the manufacturer is
Chinese.” Building on this assumption, Plaintiff then alleges that “even if that
Chinese manufacturer could be identified, there is no way for a court in North
Carolina to exercise jurisdiction over that manufacturer”—thereby assuming that
Chinese distributors do not purchase their products from outside of China and that
Chinese manufacturers do not purposely avail themselves of North Carolina markets.
See Bartlett v. Est. of Burke, 285 N.C. App. 249, 265, 877 S.E.2d 432, 443–44 (2022)
(“[T]he mere manufacture and introduction of a product into the world’s stream of
commerce without purposeful availment is insufficient to establish personal
jurisdiction in North Carolina.” (cleaned up)), appeal dismissed and disc. review
denied, 386 N.C. 662, 905 S.E.2d 219 (2024).
Even though we are to indulgently regard Plaintiff’s evidence, see Nicholson,
124 N.C. App. at 63, 476 S.E.2d at 675, Plaintiff is nonetheless required to “set forth
specific facts showing there is an issue for trial.” Doggett v. Welborn, 18 N.C. App.
105, 107, 196 S.E.2d 36, 37, cert. denied, 283 N.C. 665, 197 S.E.2d 873 (1973).
Admittedly, it is not in Defendants’ interest to reveal the identity of the manufacturer
of the defective battery where the manufacturer is not subject to the jurisdiction of
our courts, if Defendants in fact possess this information. Nevertheless, regarding
North Carolina courts’ alleged lack of jurisdiction over the manufacturer, Plaintiff’s
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evidence on this issue reduces to the bare fact that the distributor positioned above
Medusa in the supply chain was Chinese. This is not sufficient to survive summary
judgment.
We conclude that Plaintiff failed to show, on the issue of jurisdiction, that
“there is an issue for trial,” id., and having properly invoked it, Defendants remain
shielded from liability by the sealed container defense.
E. Additional Bars to Assertion of Sealed Container Defense
Plaintiff further contends that there are “other sealed container requirements”
that Defendants failed to satisfy.
First, Plaintiff maintains that Defendants did not purchase the defective
battery from a “reputable manufacturer” and therefore cannot assert the sealed
container defense, citing Sutton v. Major Products Company, 91 N.C. App. 610, 614,
372 S.E.2d 897, 900 (1988). In Sutton, this Court concluded that “a seller of a product
made by a reputable manufacturer, where he acts as a mere conduit and has no
knowledge or reason to know of a product’s dangerous propensities, is under no
affirmative duty to inspect or test for a latent defect.” Id. (emphasis added) (cleaned
up). Plaintiff alleges that no Defendant “purchased the battery from a reputable
manufacturer. It’s undisputed that the battery sold to [Plaintiff] was a counterfeit
Samsung battery.”
Plaintiff’s interpretation of Sutton overemphasizes the term “reputable.”
Sutton did not undertake to define “reputable” and its disposition did not turn on
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whether the manufacturer was indeed reputable. Moreover, cases citing Sutton do
not turn on the reputability of the manufacturer. See Nicholson, 124 N.C. App. at 65,
476 S.E.2d.at 676; Crews, 106 N.C. App. at 329, 416 S.E.2d at 928. We also note that
in the instant case, it is undisputed that the manufacturer is unknown, rather than
a known and disreputable entity. Accordingly, we conclude that in this respect Sutton
does not apply to the case at hand.
Next, Plaintiff argues that Defendants cannot benefit from the sealed
container defense because they “acted as more than ‘mere conduits’ of the battery
manufacturer,” citing Crews. In Crews, this Court determined that when “the seller
assembles and installs the product thereby acting as more than a mere conduit, the
seller has the duty to exercise reasonable care in assembling and installing the
product and in inspecting the product for latent defects.” 106 N.C. App. at 329–30,
416 S.E.2d at 928 (cleaned up). Plaintiff alleges that a MadVapes employee
“persuaded [him] to buy a vape device that required removable, CLC batteries, even
though the batteries for such devices are known to be unsafe”; “taught [him] how to
use the device”; and “selected the battery, . . . and then installed [it] in the device.”
Yet, the seller assembly and installation discussed in Crews differ significantly
from the installation of a battery in the present case. In Crews, the plaintiff suffered
severe frostbite after a walk-in freezer door closed behind her and the interior door
lock release button malfunctioned. Id. at 327, 416 S.E.2d at 927. The plaintiff filed
suit against the defendant, whose employees “assembled and installed the various
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pre-assembled parts of the freezer, including the freezer door in which the
manufacturer had previously installed the . . . door latch assembly.” Id. at 330, 416
S.E.2d at 929. By contrast, the “installation” here was merely the act of placing the
CLC battery in the vaping device, a task Plaintiff anticipated performing himself
when the original battery was depleted. As to a MadVapes employee persuading
Plaintiff to purchase the battery, it is long settled that a seller has no duty to test or
inspect a product when acting as “a mere marketing conduit between producer and
consumer.” Davis v. Siloo Inc., 47 N.C. App. 237, 247, 267 S.E.2d 354, 360, disc. review
denied, 301 N.C. 234, 283 S.E.2d 131 (1980). Furthermore, Plaintiff cites no cases in
which our courts have concluded that mere persuasion to purchase an item exposes
a seller to liability for a product defect.
Plaintiff further contends that Defendants “knew or should have known” that
the battery could explode, precluding Defendants’ invocation of the sealed container
defense. “A non-manufacturing seller acting as a mere conduit of the product . . .
ordinarily has no affirmative duty to inspect and test a product made by a reputable
manufacturer. However, this rule does not stand where the seller knows or has reason
to know of a product’s dangerous propensity.” Nicholson, 124 N.C. App. at 65, 476
S.E.2d at 676 (emphasis omitted) (cleaned up). At no point does Plaintiff’s argument
to this Court address a duty to inspect and test the battery. Instead, Plaintiff first
focuses on Defendants’ knowledge of battery explosions and manufacturer warnings
that CLC batteries should not be used in vaping devices, then concludes that
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“MadVapes warned its own employees about the importance of battery safety. But it
didn’t warn [Plaintiff] about these things.” Rather than challenge Defendants’ failure
to discover the latent defect, Plaintiff essentially reasserts his failure-to-warn claim.
Consequently, Plaintiff’s argument under Nicholson is overruled.
Finally, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants are prohibited from asserting the
sealed container defense because “Defendants misrepresented the authenticity of the
battery.” Plaintiff cites Davis, in which this Court stated that although “the seller of
a product is ordinarily not liable for his failure to discover . . . product defects which
are latent,” this rule does not apply in some instances, including “where the seller
makes representations concerning the product.” 47 N.C. App. at 247, 267 S.E.2d at
360 (citation omitted). This Court did not discuss or apply the exception in Davis;
however, our Supreme Court applied the exception in Jones v. Raney Chevrolet Co.,
217 N.C. 693, 694, 9 S.E.2d 395, 396 (1940).
In Jones, a retail automobile “dealer represented to the owner that the
automobile was equipped with good, reliable brakes when it knew, or by the exercise
of due care could have known, that the automobile had defective brakes.” Id. As a
result of the defective brakes, “the automobile was wrecked resulting in injury to the
plaintiff.” Id. Our Supreme Court concluded: “A retail dealer who takes a used truck
in trade and undertakes to repair and recondition it for resale . . . owes a duty to the
public to use reasonable care in the making of tests for the purpose of detecting
defects which would make the truck a menace.” Id. (citation omitted). In addition, the
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dealer “is charged with knowledge of defects which are patent or discoverable in the
exercise of ordinary care.” Id. (citation omitted).
In Plaintiff’s view, Defendants’ representation was that the battery in question
was an authentic Samsung battery, when in reality it was a counterfeit Samsung
battery. Yet, even if true, this is not a representation that was shown to be relevant
to Plaintiff’s injury, as it is undisputed that the defect in the battery in question was
latent and not reasonably discoverable in the exercise of ordinary care. Thus, this
argument is similarly overruled.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Plaintiff’s claims are governed by
the Products Liability Act; that Defendants are not barred from raising the sealed
container defense pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 99B-2(a); and that Plaintiff cannot
surmount this defense. Accordingly, we affirm the orders of the trial court.
AFFIRMED.
Judges FLOOD and STADING concur.
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