Keeping Your Child Safe: Products Liability and the Holidays
With the holidays coming up, everyone is starting to feel the pressure of gift purchasing. Those of us with little ones anxiously await the look on our children’s faces when they open up the brightly-colored boxes filled with various toys and trinkets. While we hope the toys will be educational, intellectually stimulating, and fun, we also hope that they are safe for our children to play with.
Children’s Defective Products
Recalls on children’s toys are more common than anyone would care to admit. While most toys offer safe entertainment for your child, it is important to consider possible risks associated with certain types of toys. Manufacturers or distributors may recall a toy for any number of reasons. Often, these include:
- Failure to warn of potential dangers
- Inaccurate age range specification
- Size of toy (choking hazard)
- Potentially toxic coating (paint, spray, etc.)
- Suffocation from toy or packaging
- Design defect or flaw
Just last year, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recalled several Chinese manufactured products due to traces of lead paint in the products. Ingestion of these chemicals can lead to death. These types of cases are particularly prevalent among very young children, as they have a tendency to put everything in their mouth. Toy manufacturers have a responsibility to know the audience to which they market their products; if they have reason to believe young children can or will get a hold of their products, they need to act accordingly to ensure safety.
Product recalls can go beyond toys and include things such as car seats, cribs, clothing items, and nursing products. Earlier this year, industry leader Graco recalled nearly four million car seats that had faulty seat belt buckles. Even car manufacturers may make recalls pertaining to children safety restraints. Subaru recently issued a recall affecting more than 275,000 Foresters, citing a possible rear seat belt flaw that may affect installation of child safety seats. The CPSC also recently recalled an infant recliner that caused injuries to an estimated 90 children.
This information is not intended to frighten parents or take any joy away from the upcoming holiday season. It simply serves as a reminder to take responsibility for your child’s safety, even when it comes to them having fun. The CPSC offers periodic updates for consumer recall information and other websites such as saferproducts.gov give consumers an opportunity to communicate their concerns about certain products on the market.
Miami Products Liability Lawyers
Regardless of how careful you are monitoring your child and the toys they play with, accidents do happen. Our experienced team of Miami products liability trial attorneys at Alan Goldfarb P.A. understands how traumatic a child’s injury or death can be on a family. We will work tirelessly to ensure that the people responsible for the faulty product, whether it be the seller, the manufacturer, the distributor, or the designer, are held responsible for their actions and further ensure no other children are harmed from their negligence. You can trust our Miami-based law firm to act in you and your child’s best interests during this difficult time. If you or anyone you know has been negatively impacted by a defective product that caused death or injury, contact us today to learn more about your rights.
