That's Fred in the picture. Excellent Guitarist. We did a show today. Private party. Pretty cool. We were in the shade and it stayed around 75 for the afternoon. They did an excellent BBQ and catered in a bunch of other stuff. Opened the whole thing to us as well. Pretty good time.
According to a different news source, she had the battery in "a separate pocket" of the purse, no plastic case or anything else to keep it from touching something metal that would short it out. A prime candidate for the Darwin awards. Plastic cases are so cheap to buy...
I buy most of my batteries from IMRbatteries.com, they ship extra wraps and cases with the batteries for free, I have lots of cases for my batteries, and I use them. I don't feel sorry for people who don't use cases when carrying extra batteries.
This is eventually why suppliers will start moving towards built in battery units. It's just not worth the risk when users can't follow simple protocol (a good number of batteries ship with warning information that almost nobody reads)
This is why you don't carry 18650 batteries loose in your pocket/purse/backpack/etc. They make little plastic cases, silicone sleeves, and zipper-pouches for a REASON!
LG should tell her "we don't reimburse you for stupidity"... Perhaps someone should tell her 99-cents for a plastic box would have saved her hundreds of dollars for a new purse (and contents)?