Florida Injury Lawyer Blawg
On April 5th, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning to consumers about the Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Play after another infant death, the tenth tragedy in less than 4 years.
The statement warns that infants aged 3 months or older, who are able to roll over while seated unrestrained in the Fisher-Price sleep, will be able to turn to their stomach or on their side and suffocate. CPSC recommends consumers to stop using the product when the infant is three months of age, or as soon as an infant exhibits rollover capabilities.
Needless to say, additional steps must be taken to reach as many consumers as possible. Many parents will continue to use the product unless Fisher-Price reaches out to or attempts to reach out to all of them.
Importantly, the box must be changed and a new warning of death by suffocation must be added immediately. Currently the box reads: “Baby can sleep at a comfortable incline all night long.” In its statement, CPSC specifically references the life-saving fact to “always place infants to sleep on their back”. Fisher-Price is falling short of its self-declared “tradition of prioritizing safety” when it fails to warn parents of the greatest danger of all.
Leesfeld Scolaro has a long and proven track-record of litigating against baby product manufacturers such as Fisher-Price, and forcing corporations to either modify their product, add warning labels, or both. Several decades ago, one of the very first cases in the early days of Ira H. Leesfield’s firm involved the death of a young child who suffocated while seated in a high chair. The successful lawsuit brought about changes throughout the high-chair industry, adding new regulations including straps and harnesses, tray size and mechanisms, age requirements, as well as clearly labeled box warnings and instruction booklet warnings.
Fast-forward to last week, Thomas Scolaro and Thomas Graham filed suit in a tragic case where a nine-month old boy died while placed unrestrained and unbuckled in a car seat. Read more about Leesfield & Partners’s verdicts and settlements.
Last year, Leesfield & Partners started the Furniture Tipping Over Facebook Page to keep parents and consumers award of the unsettling shortcomings in the furniture manufacturing industry which seem hell-bent on selling unsafe pieces of furniture with inherent tip-over propensity and risks of toddler’s death.
