Part Two of Two

The September 2010 Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC’s) recall list includes warnings about products posing choking, strangulation, laceration and impact injury risks. Other referenced items can cause fire, burn and fall hazards.  Our monthly reviews of these government lists are designed to minimize your chances of purchasing dangerous products. Always try and review these lists before ever making new purchases or accepting used goods from others. Part Two of our September 2010 product recall review looks at items posing fire, burn and fall risks. This second half of our review also includes a brief CPSC news overview regarding recent investigations, statistical reports and assigned penalties. Part One of our September 2010 recall list review focused mainly on products posing choking and strangulation hazards. It also described items that can inflict laceration or impact injuries upon consumers. (Readers interested in reviewing the complete September 2010 CPSC product recall list can visit the following link: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prerelsep10.html).

Products Posing Fire and Burn Hazards

• Paradigm Electronics, of Ontario, Canada, is voluntarily recalling close to 2,200   Subwoofer Speakers. If these speakers become overheated from lengthy use, they can create a fire risk for consumers.
• The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf®, of Los Angeles, California, has agreed to recall close to 1,600 Tea Sets. When these sets are placed in microwave ovens, some of their metallic decorations can cause fires.
• Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., of Irvine, California, is voluntarily recalling about 41,000 Satellite T135, Satellite T135D and Satellite ProT130 Notebook Computers (sold around the world). These computers can pose burn hazards to consumers when their “plug-ins” to the AC adapters start to overheat.

Products Posing Fall Risks

• Simms Fishing Products, of Bozeman, Montana, has agreed to recall close to 3,000 Wading Staffs. If the staffs collapse, they can pose fall risks to consumers.
• Kompan Inc., of Tacoma, Washington and BigToys Inc., of Olympia, Washington, are both voluntarily recalling about 700 Swing Sets since some of the joint connections in these sets can break and crack, creating fall hazards for consumers.

General Consumer Product Safety Commission News

• Summer Season 2010 Drowning Statistics for Children

Now that the summer swimming season has come to a close for children now back in school, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Home Safety Council (HSC) are releasing statistical information on how many children drowned this past summer. (See: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml10/10332.html).

• Civil Penalty Assessed Regarding Drawstrings on Children’s Sweatshirts

Pro-Pac Distributing Corporation, of Gardena, California, has agreed to pay a $125, 000 civil penalty settlement for failing to abide by the federal law which     requires companies to immediately notify the government after importing   children’s hooded sweatshirts featuring drawstrings at the neck.

• Diaper Rash Allegations Involving Pampers Still Under Investigation

As of early September 2010, the CPSC and Health Canada (HC) have not discovered any specific causes in the consumer incident reports they have studied             linking Pampers Dry Max Diapers and diaper rash. (See: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml10/10331.html ).

Our firm hopes that these monthly CPSC product recall reviews and brief news updates will help readers better protect themselves from being harmed by the many dangerous products that keep finding their way to the marketplace.

Demas & Rosenthal remains one of Sacramento’s most highly respected and accomplished personal injury law firms. We’ve been successfully representing clients since our firm first opened its doors back in 1993. Every Demas & Rosenthal attorney takes great pride in obtaining the full compensation and complete justice owed to every client.

Whether they have their own children or not, most Americans are familiar with the Fisher-Price name since the company has been marketing its highly popular toys and other products to children for many years. Yet whenever one of this country’s major toy manufacturers has to recall a vast number of its goods, it’s always a bit surprising.

At present, Fisher-Price is recalling over 11 million children’s products. Safety concerns have prompted the recall of many of the company’s toys, tricycles and high chairs.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recently stated that the tricycles and high chairs have been directly blamed for some children’s injuries. In fact, six of the ten children known to have suffered harm had to receive medical attention. These injuries involved Fisher-Price’s Trike and Tough Trike toddler tricycles. Many of these tricycles feature well known characters such as Dora the Explorer and Barbie. Apparently, the plastic ignition keys located near these tricycles’ seats can cause a variety of injuries to children who accidentally fall onto them. Some kids have even suffered genital bleeding from these accidents.

Fisher-Price has also had to recall more than one million of its Healthy Care, Easy Clean and Close to Me High Chairs due to fourteen separate complaints. It seems that when people use the pegs on the backs of these high chairs to store the trays, children who fall on them can injure themselves. In fact, seven of the fourteen children who were injured required stitches due to this design defect.

Although the CPSC is very concerned about these product defects, they are pleased that Fisher-Price is offering free repairs and replacements to consumers. While the vast majority of these high chairs were sold in the United States, close to 400,000 of them were sold in Canada.

Additional Fisher-Price Recalls

The other current Fisher-Price products being recalled include over 2.8 million

Baby Playzone Crawl & Cruise Playground toys, Baby Gymtastics Play Wall toys, Baby Playzone Crawl & Slide Arcade toys, Ocean Wonders Kick & Crawl Aquarium toys, Bat & Score Goal toys and 1-2-3 Tetherball toys. Apparently, when the valves come off these toys’ balls, they pose a choking hazard to children. Consumers have already reported more than 50 such valves coming off the balls.

Finally, Fisher-Price is also recalling about 120,000 Little People Wheelies Stand ‘n Play Rampway toys. (That figure covers both the U. S. and Canadian sales of these toys). These products were sold between April and late September 2010 to mass merchandise stores in both countries. The main danger posed by these “rampway” toys occurs when the wheels on the green and purple cars come off, creating serious choking risks to children.

California Personal Injury Attorneys

Please respond to our firm’s recall update by removing these toys from your home so you can obtain free repairs or replacements for them. We hope this massive recall will also remind you to be extra careful when buying any children’s toys or products in secondhand stores. Always ask a secondhand store sales clerk to look up any toy or product you’re interested in buying on the Internet — so you can be sure that it isn’t the subject of a current or past recall.

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Demas & Rosenthal remains one of Sacramento’s most highly respected and accomplished personal injury law firms. We’ve been successfully representing clients since our firm first opened its doors back in 1993. Every Demas & Rosenthal attorney takes great pride in obtaining the full compensation and complete justice owed to every client.

You certainly want what’s best for your children. You want them to make wise decisions, study hard, and excel in life. You also want them to stay safe, especially when they’re behind the wheel, which is why you’ve taught them not to drink and drive, or get in a car that’s being driven by someone who HAS been drinking and driving.

But are you aware that there is a danger behind the wheel that could be even more threatening than alcohol?

It’s texting and driving.

Studies have shown that texting while driving can be as dangerous as driving drunk, and yet about 70% of people admit to having sent text messages from behind the wheel. And this problem definitely affects teenagers; according to one study, almost half of our nation’s teenagers have admitted that their distraction while driving is caused by text messaging.

I think that texting while driving is even more dangerous than drinking while driving, because people are lulled into a false sense of security while doing it. We’ve been taught that alcohol and a car is a bad combination (and it is!), but we haven’t really been taught that cell phones, which everyone has these days, are just as dangerous behind the wheel, if not more so.

So parents, it is important that you teach your children not to text and drive. Explain the dangers to them, and show them that you care about their safety. Encourage them to save their conversations until they have reached their destination safely, and you will be doing your part to make our roads, and your children, much safer.

The old saying for many is that the month of March “comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.”  For those who manufacture children’s products of almost any type, the opportunity to turn the next page on the calendar is more than welcome given that March could go down as the worst month in history when it comes to the number of product recalls involving children’s products.

Just in the past month alone, we’ve posted warnings regarding recalls that involve:

• Baby slings
• High chairs
• Fork and spoon sets
• Hooded sweatshirts
• Roman shades and Roll-up blinds
• Stairway gates

Each of these products presented immediate dangers to children who used them including suffocation, choking, strangulation and dangerous falls from the top of staircases.

There could be many reasons for this enormous number of recalls dealing with children’s products, and possibilities include tighter oversight by those charged with protecting consumers, lower quality in terms of manufacturing or simply a string of incredible coincidences that led to all of these recalls occurring in a short period of time.

Regardless of why these product recalls occurred at such a high rate during March of 2010, the bottom line remains the same – those who place defective and dangerous products into the market stream need to be held accountable for the damage they have caused.  Consumers tend to trust products that make it to the retail shelves and assume that they have been tested for safety.

If you or someone you love has been harmed by a dangerous product, contact the Sacramento defective products lawyers who have years of experience in holding corporations responsible for the harm they have caused.  Contact Demas & Rosenthal today to schedule a free initial consultation.