>It might be my "European" upbringing, but why? Is there any indicating it was the manufacturers fault?

Because we are not in Europe, and we rely on lawsuits to keep the manufacturers in check instead of having them regulated like they do in Europe.

Also, because we are not in Europe, we don't have universal healthcare, so the OP's visit to the doctor (and any possible medical care they could need for their injuries) is coming out of their own pocket unless they sue.

Also, because the rules of the "free market" we have here require dangerous products to be clearly labeled as such, but the enforcement of this rule is "the consumers should sue if there's a problem".

In short, every time you hear about Americans being lawsuit-happy, it's because we need to sue to get the stuff that you're taking for granted where you're living.

>Is there any indicating it was the manufacturers fault?

Yes, there is. The OP used the product in accordance to the manufacturer's guidelines[1], and adhered to all safety warnings (which, by the way, didn't even mention risk of fire or chemical burns under normal operating conditions).

Given that, the manufacturer's fault appears to be clearly established.

[1]https://assets.bose.com/content/dam/Bose_DAM/Web/consumer_el...

There are two schools of thought on tort liability.

1. Fault should be assigned, and those at fault should be paying for the damages to those not at fault.

2. People should be insured against these events, and we should assign responsibility to whoever it makes the most sense to have responsible for obtaining insurance.

If you take the second approach, that party is often the manufacturer. The consumer isn't really in a good position to buy flaming headphone insurance because that is such a rare event that any individual consumer has no idea how much coverage they need.

They could get it covered under their general medical or house insurance, but their insurance companies probably don't have much data on how often that specific issue happens to actually figure out the right price, so it just will get lumped into some general category of unclassified accidents.

The manufacturer, on the other hand, will have data in how often this happens, so a proper price for insurance can be determined. The manufacturer can likely get a breakdown of how often these incidents are due to manufacturing defects, how often they could have been prevented by minor design changes, how often they are due to the consumer doing something stupid, and so on. That can lead the manufacturer to make changes to reduce future such incidents. That would be much less likely if the incidents were handled by health or house insurance.

In my experience, if something spontaneously catches fire, it's always the manufacturer's fault.

The issue here is not your European upbringing but rather the American justice system. Suing Americans can be awarded punitive damage while European countries cap what you will be awarded at compensatory damages. That makes Americans trigger happy.

In Europe it usually is, until proven otherwise. At least in the first year (and for some classes of problems, longer).

Because you should always contact a lawyer. Until you do, you really have no idea how serious something is.

Don’t try to figure these things out yourself.

>You're conflating...

I am conflating nothing as I was summarizing the comments of other people in that sentence. The other comments do conflate different battery types; you can educate the people who make them. Ctrl+F "lithium" in this thread will get you plenty.