After recently seeing Fight Club again, I have been having these thoughts about pissing in the food that I get at a hotel and filing a class action lawsuit.

$5 on user error.

While this is probably BS I'll give that plaintiff credit for asking for a reasonable amount of money.  $236,304 sounds about right for a burned down house.  It isn't some individual asking for millions for "personal trauma".  I don't know if Nintendo is at fault here but the charge is very reasonably.  "We had to pay this much for a house burning down.  We believe this was your fault.  Please re-emburse us for the expense we had to make."  That's what a lawsuit is supposed to be.

I'm genuinely curious... how exactly does 'user error' result in an AC adapter setting a house on fire, other than hacking it up with a pickaxe before plugging it in?

You could dip it in a fishbowl while it charges?

Well... just an imaginary scenario:

87 adapters plugged into the same overloaded wall socket, using a huge tangle of cheapo socket extension cords and socket multipliers, all shoved into a tiny crack next to the couch and covered with a thick layer of dust, and the (flammable) drapes.

Eventually luck runs out and the place burns.

Local ambulance-chaser parachutes in as soon as the fire department leaves, and finds one recognizable adapter made by a deep pockets company in the resulting melted slag heap.  Notices a previous vaguely related lawsuit! Ker-ching!

You could try using a foreign adapter, even though you're in Kentucky.

Maybe this was one of those counterfeit DS's with the potentially hazardous chargers, that people were blogging about a while back.

did they buy the ds from the uk?

Hm, if that's it Nintendo isn't at fault AFAIK.