Articles Posted in Product Liability

A man was dead in Norco after his trailer caught on fire sparked off by an electrical short from a remote-control car battery, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. Donald Lee Moss, 38, was asleep in his trailer when flames ripped through the RV he was staying in, the article stated.

Moss had reportedly gone to bed just before the fire broke out and was apparently planning to race his remote-control cars the next day. The battery for the cars was charging as he slept, the newspaper reported.

The fire was so intense and so powerful that that the heat caused the windows to burst out, the article said. Neighbors tried to help Moss, but they didn’t know if he was inside or had made it out. Finally, one neighbor smashed open a window using a hammer. Moss had suffered severe burns and died at the Corona Regional Medical Center shortly after he was taken there.
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While it’s not necessarily a quick fix, there may be a way parents can protect their children from unsafe toys containing lead-based paint this holiday season. According to National Public Radio, there are a few inexpensive testing kits out there that will allow parents to test toys for lead before putting them under the tree.

The test sets usually call for a Q-tip-type instrument (think CSI), to be dipped into a clear solution, which is then applied and rubbed onto the toy for approximately 30 seconds. Apparently, the more lead on the toy’s surface the faster the solution will react. According to Dave Lachance, developer of one of the lead test kits, Abotex Lead Inspector (which sells for $13), if the color changes to dark black it is indicative of high levels of lead. The solution can take up to 10 minutes plus to react to lower lead concentrations, Lachance said. Not surprisingly, the toy Lachance tested for his story came from China, from which many lead-based toys have been recalled this year.
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Lately, the newspapers have been filled with articles about children’s toys tainted with lead paint. Most of these products were made in China. Now, we’re almost on Halloween Day and it’s interesting to note that last year at this time the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a voluntary recall of “Creepy Capes” sold by Family Dollar, Inc. It seems that these products failed to meet the standards for the flammability of vinyl plastic film, posing fire and burn hazards to consumers. And yup, you guessed right. They were made in China too.

So far, China has been recognized as importing dangerous foods and toys and they are promising tighter safety controls on what they export, but the proof is ‘in the pudding’. This year U.S. inspectors have banned or turned away a growing number of Chinese exports including wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine, which has been blamed for dog and cat deaths in North America. And, Monkfish containing life-threatening levels of toxins were discovered. Further, drug-laced frozen eel, and juice made with unsafe color additives have been banned in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ceased all imports of Chinese toothpaste too to test for a deadly chemical reportedly found in tubes sold in Australia, the Dominican Republic and Panama.
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A South Africa-based company has recalled about 1 million infant baby seats because there were several reports of children falling out of these seats and getting badly hurt. According to a Reuters news report, the seats were sold by many large retailers in the United States including Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Sears and Babies’R’ Us.

The article states that of the 28 young children who fell out of these “sitter” seats, three suffered skull fractures because the seats were kept on table tops. The company, Bumbo International, is voluntarily recalling the products so it can update its safety label to include the warning that the seats should never be placed on a table, counter top, chair or any other elevated surface. The company states the product is otherwise safe and does not consist of any defective parts that will compromise a child’s safety when used correctly.

The company has also announced on its Web site http://www.bumbo.co.za/ that it will stop selling these seats until the safety information and packaging have been updated. The company stresses that there are no product defects. More information about the recall may also be found on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Web site.
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Authorities in Pineville, Missouri, are saying that a baby bassinet that was not part of Simplicity Inc.’s recall of 1 million defective cribs, is as much a death trap as the recalled cribs. How do they know? Because a 4-month old girl died in one of those 4-in-one bassinets. Little Katelynn Marie Simon died Sept. 29 of “accident positional asphyxiation,” after she was caught between the rail of the bassinet and the mattress, according to an article in The Joplin Globe.

The article states local officials contacted the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) right away to make sure the bassinets are included in the recall list of defective products as well. These bassinets now join the long list of defective and dangerous children’s products that were made in China. The bassinets have a model number of 3112DOH6 with Winnie the Pooh decorations. CPSC or Simplicity have not yet recalled the product. Last month the company recalled 1 million cribs after reports of three infant deaths.
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An Illinois woman has filed a class-action lawsuit against Simplicity Inc. and Target Corp. whose cribs were recently recalled because of manufacturing defects that caused the deaths of at least three infants. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, Amber Spritzer is on a mission to get justice for the parents who have been using these defective products. She herself had, until recently, put her 1-year-old daughter, Briana, to bed in one of these death traps every night.

This is what Spritzer had to tell the Tribune: “My daughter is my life, and I would do anything to protect her and I know that there are millions of parents out there that feel the same way. So if the government won’t protect our children, then I will.”
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By: Staff Writer

The company that manufactures Simplicity and Graco cribs have recalled about 1 million of the defective products after at least two babies – including one from Citrus Heights, Calif. — reportedly died of suffocation. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times. Keeping with the recent trend with defective or recalled products these cribs were also made in China, further elevating the issue of quality control of imported goods – from food to toys and household products.

These cribs were apparently sold at major retailers all over the United States. One of the crib’s features, a “drop-side” railing, officials say, tends to pull away from the crib mattress causing infants to get trapped in the gap as a result and suffocate. According to a report by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, officials received reports of seven infant entrapments and a total of 55 incidents in these cribs. The report further states that the crib’s design is flawed allowing consumers to unintentionally install the defective drop-side feature upside down. This in turn weakens the hardware and causes the drop-side to detach from the crib creating the dangerous gap. A 9-month-old and another 6-month-old died in exactly such a situation where the drop-side was installed upside down.
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What do parents need to watch out for when they buy Christmas presents this year?

Just when we thought we’ve seen the end of the Mattel toy recall, the world’s largest toy maker on Wednesday announced yet another massive recall involving 800,000 Barbie accessories, Fischer Price train locomotives and bongo drums. Again, the reason for this recall, the third large one for Mattel just this summer, is the presence of unacceptably high quantities of lead in the paint used to brighten these toys.

Early in August, the company recalled 1.5 million toys featuring Elmo and other popular characters. Later the same month, “Sarge” toy cars from the hit Disney movie “Cars” as well as 9 million other toys containing tiny magnets were recalled. The total number of toys recalled by Mattel is now a whopping 19 million. The latest recall is being announced jointly by the toy company as well as the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Consumer watchdog Web site Consumeraffairs.com published an article earlier this week about a study conducted by a national nonprofit called Kids in Danger which showed that injuries among children more than doubled in the last five years compared to the preceding 10 years.
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BY: A Staff Writer
Tenacity and persistence are two qualities that can make or break a personal injury attorney or firm. Because, without these qualities it is impossible to win cases or more importantly, to get justice for those people who have been seriously injured or killed because of someone else’s negligence.

Take for example the San Francisco product liability case against Ford Motor Co. The case was brought by parents of Walter White, a 3-year-old boy who died 13 years ago because the parking brake on his father’s Ford truck failed, rolling down the hill and running him over. According to an article by the Associated Press, the case is still not over although a jury in a second retrial had already awarded $52 million to the deceased child’s parents. A judge threw out that award last week agreeing with Ford’s lawyers that mistakes were made during the last trial in jury instructions.

The Whites sued both Orscheln Company, the maker of the brakes and Ford for not warning consumers in spite of knowing that the brakes would allow the truck to roll. Ford issued a recall in connection with the defective brakes two months after little Walter died.
In the first trial in 1998, Ford was found negligent and the jury awarded the parents $2.3 million in compensatory damages and $150.8 million in punitive damages, meant to punish Ford. But that didn’t hold on appeal and the district court reduced punitive damages to $69.2 million finding it “excessive.” The case was sent to a new trial because both parties appealed that decision.
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BY: A Staff Writer
A new study has found that the number of children who have been injured by dangerous toys has more than doubled in the last five years compared to the preceding decade, according to an article in the watchdog Web site, www.consumeraffairs.com. The study, which was conducted by a nonprofit group called Kids in Danger, reports that more children are being hurt by products recalled for fire- and burn-related dangers.

The study looked into 40 products recalled by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in the last five years. The study found that 40 products were recalled in the last one year whereas only 42 products were recalled in the 10 years before that! Does that mean toy makers are putting profit over our children’s safety by handing over manufacturing operations to some sweat shop in the Third World where quality control doesn’t exist? That does seem to be the big question this study poses.

Despite modern technological advancements, which one would think might help enhance safety, the report found that toys were recalled for defects such as electrical and battery failure, flammability and exposed heat surface/substance. In the last one year alone more than 5 million defective toys were recalled. According to the report, the product that caused the most injuries was Hasbro Inc.’s Easy-Bake Oven, which caused 82 burn injuries, one so severe as to require the amputation of a 5-year-old’s finger.
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