Tyrese Maxey’s ex-landlords blamed his Maserati for a fire. Courts said they couldn’t prove it.
The former landlords of Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey sued Maserati, claiming a defect in the luxury car was the source of a 2021 house fire. The Third Circuit Court ruled they didn't prove their case.
Tyrese Maxey’s youngest sister was the first to smell something burning on Christmas Eve 2021. The 76ers guard followed his family members outside his Voorhees home when he saw the left side of the house engulfed in flames.
No one was injured, which was “really all that matters,” Maxey said at the time of the holiday weekend scare.
“As long as we were alive, everything else is [just] material. Everything else can be replaced,” the two-time All-Star said.
The rental house was damaged significantly, and Maxey’s landlords said they found their culprit: a defect in Maxey’s Maserati, which was parked in the garage.
But Jim Wang, Dean Wang, and their mother, Yu Bai, failed to prove that the Maserati was defective or that it caused the fire, a federal appeals court ruled last week.
“My clients are disappointed with the court’s decision and are evaluating their options,” Jeffrey Resnick, an attorney with Sherman & Silverstein representing the landlords, said in a statement.
Maserati’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
The Wangs and Bai sued Maserati North America in the District Court of New Jersey in 2023, accusing the Italian luxury-car manufacturer of selling a “not reasonably safe” car that combusts.
To bolster their allegation, the landlords hired an expert witness who concluded it was “more likely than not” the fire originated in the Maserati’s engine compartment, court records show.
Three elements are needed to prove product liability under New Jersey law. The landlords needed to prove the Maserati was defective, the defect existed when the car was originally sold, and the defect caused the fire.
The Maserati in question was first sold in 2018 in Louisville, and Maxey purchased it in 2020 from an auto shop in Dallas. He brought it with him to the Philadelphia area after being drafted by the Sixers in November 2020.
But Maxey rarely drove the Maserati, and opted instead to drive his Ranger Rover.
“It was wintertime, you understand what I’m saying, so I didn’t really drive it during this time,” the Sixer said in a deposition. “Sometimes it rains, I didn’t want to mess up the car.”
The landlords’ expert witness, Nicholas Palumbo, is a retired fire investigator and former firefighter, court records show. Attorneys for Maserati argued that Palumbo did not have a degree or training in engineering and had no experience with automobiles.
“In essence, Mr. Palumbo defaults to an opinion that the fire originated in the engine compartment of the vehicle because he could not find any other potential cause,” the car company’s attorneys said in a court filing.
In March 2025, U.S. District Judge Karen M. Williams found the landlords’ witness failed to prove all three elements of the product liability claim, and did not have credentials to opine on the cause of the fire.
The landlords appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, but a three-judge panel at the higher court also rejected their argument.
Local fire authorities and private experts hired by Maserati and insurance companies concluded the cause of the fire was “undetermined,” and some ruled out the car as the source, the appeals court’s opinion says.
“The Wangs cannot prove that there was a defect, that it existed at the time the product left Maserati’s control, or that it caused the fire,” U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman wrote.
Maxey and his family ended up celebrating Christmas Eve in a hotel. He then had to clear COVID-19 protocol on Christmas Day before a Dec. 26 win against the Washington Wizards, and later moved to temporary housing while searching for a new home.