CPSC

Orlando personal injury attorney James O. Cunningham would like to alert Florida parents and grandparents about a recall that affects children’s swimwear due to a potential strangulation hazard. Build-A-Bear Workshop of St. Louis, in connection with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Health Canada, has recently announced that their Swimwear Set With Inflatable Inner Tube is being voluntarily recalled and parents who own these garments should stop using them immediately. Any retailers who have this product on their shelves are ordered by the CPSC to remove this product immediately as it is illegal to resell or attempt to resell any recalled product.

Build-A-Bear Workshop reports that it has sold nearly 20,000 units of the Swimwear Set With Inflatable Inner Tube in the U.S. and 1,100 units in Canada. The manufacturer and the CPSC report that the inner tube accessory, which was designed to be a built-in flotation device, can be pulled over a child’s head and potentially strangle him or her. Build-A-Bear has received at least one report of an incident where a three-year-old girl pulled the inner tube over her head and had a great deal of difficulty removing it before she was found by a parent.

The recalled product is part of the three-piece Fruit Tutu Bikini swimwear set for teddy bears, and the inner tube is around nine inches in diameter and mostly pink decorated with white and yellow flowers. The recalled swimwear was sold through the manufacturer’s website and national retailers for around $12.50 and is model number 017220. Parents and grandparents can locate the model number on the “Build-A-Bear” cardboard tag that came with the product. Customers are urged to stop using the product immediately and return it to any Build-A-Bear Workshop store to receive a $5 store coupon. If there isn’t a store nearby, parents can contact the company for more information at (866) 236-5683 between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. CT Monday through Friday or between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. CT Saturday, or visit the company’s website at www.buildabear.com.

Defective products that are intended to be used by children are especially frightening as it only takes a moment’s inattention by a parent or guardian for a child’s life to be imperiled. If you are the parent or guardian of a child who has been injured by a defective product, you have a right to seek damages against the manufacturer whether it has been the subject of a recall or not and should seek the counsel of an experienced Orlando personal injury lawyer. Mr. Cunningham has been helping families receive the fair and just compensation they deserve since 1977 and is quite skilled in helping clients receive damages through negotiated settlements and court awards. For more information and to schedule a free consultation, call 888-425-2004 or 407-425-2000 today.

On September 29, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a recall for around 2,300 drop-side cribs in the United States, and Health Canada has recalled another 800 in Canada. The recall affects drop-side cribs made by Sherman Inc. due to risks of entrapment, suffocation and fall hazards. The CPSC advises anyone who owns one of these cribs to stop using it immediately as the drop-side rail hardware used in construction of the cribs can break or fail, allowing the drop-side to become detached from the crib. If this occurs, a dangerous gap is created between the drop-side and the mattress, potentially trapping and hurting or suffocating an infant.

Some infants have also fallen out of these cribs after the drop-side hardware has failed due to incorrect assembly or everyday wear and tear caused by raising and lowering the drop-side. The CPSC reports on their site that:

“This recall involves wooden drop-side cribs with hidden drop-side hardware. The cribs were sold in various colors. Model numbers 202647, 211047 and 272547 are included in this recall. The cribs were sold separately and as part of the ‘City Lights,’ ‘Fairy Tales’ and ‘Dormez Vous’ furniture collections. ‘Shermag’ is printed on a tag on the mattress springs. The model numbers can be found on stickers and warning labels on the crib’s headboard or footboard.”

Anyone who owns one of these cribs can contact Shermag to receive a free repair kit that reportedly prevents the drop-side from dropping unexpectedly. For more information about the crib recall, owners can contact Shermag at (800) 567-3419 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or visit http://www.shermag.com.

We expect products to be designed and constructed so that they are safe to use. We especially expect products designed for children to be over-engineered so that they pose no risk to a child’s health and life. Sadly, as this and other crib recalls in recent years have shown, these expectations are not always rewarded with sturdy products that are safe to use. When a product of any kind injures a child, parents have a right to seek damages against the manufacturer, distributor and retailers that sold the product.

If a defective product has injured your child and you want to speak with an Orlando personal injury lawyer, call James O. Cunningham today at 888-425-2004 or 407-425-2000 to schedule a free consultation. Mr. Cunningham has a proven record of success in product liability cases and has extensive experience helping parents receive damages through negotiated settlements or court awards. If you have questions about Florida product liability laws and your rights as a consumer, call today to get an aggressive Orlando product liability attorney on your side!

A recent recall affected popular children’s lamp due to a defect that causes the lamp to catch fire. This article reports that models of Discovery Kids Animated Marine and Safari Lamps were recalled after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission learned that the lamp’s manufacturer had received nine reports of problems with the lamp. The Discovery Kids Lamp recall occurred on February 9 after reports of at least seven of the lamps catching fire. The fires reportedly caused at least three separate incidents of property damage and smoke inhalation injuries to one child.
Read the rest »