Photo: Getty Images
SANTA MONICA (CNS) - A 39-year-old Santa Monica woman wants a jury to hear her lawsuit alleging the glass head on a skin therapy wand machine she bought through the e-commerce company's website unexpectedly exploded in 2019 even though she was using the device as directed. “The explosion sent both glass and a devastating electrocution into and through my hand, sending my blood splattering onto the walls and as far as the ceiling and leaving me with serious and debilitating injuries,” plaintiff Azin Espahbod says in a sworn declaration filed Monday in Santa Monica Superior Court.
Photo: Getty Images
The NuDerma skin therapy wand machine, made by Pure Daily Care, is represented as providing painless and effective treatment while reducing wrinkles and fine lines over time by boosting circulation and collagen, according to the lawsuit filed in May 2020.
But contrary to the Amazon and Onyx assertions, the wand has a material defect in its glass head that can cause it to explode and break off, sending glass and a strong powerful electric current to the user, the suit alleges.
The lawsuit also names Onyx Distribution Inc., the alleged seller of the wand on the Amazon site, as a defendant. Espahbod's statement is part of her opposition to Amazon's motion to dismiss them as a defendant in her suit, which is scheduled to be heard Dec. 19 by Judge Mark H. Epstein.
Photo: Getty Images
The Amazon attorneys state in their court papers that Espahbod cannot maintain an implied warranty claim against Amazon because the company “indisputably did not sell the wand” and did not have “exclusive knowledge of, or actively conceal,” information about the wand's alleged defect.
In addition, the Espahbod received a refund for her wand and is “unlikely to use another,” the Amazon lawyers state in their court papers.
In her declaration, Espahbod says she called Amazon multiple times after being hurt while using the device in June 2019 and that the company stopped selling the wand for a while before resuming sales again a week later.
“I contacted Amazon again asking why the wand was being sold again and Amazon informed me that the product was changed and that Amazon was now selling a new-and-improved version of the product,” Espahbod says.
The wand “was not of merchantable quality and was not safe and fit for its intended uses,'' according to the suit, which also says the alleged defect in the glass head “was substantially certain to result in a malfunction” during use by a consumer.
Amazon profited off the sale of the wand through fees the company charges sellers like Onyx “to operate as a storefront on Amazon's website,” the suit states.