Childhood should be a time of safety, but unfortunately, children's products are not always manufactured or designed as carefully as they should be. Sometimes they lack adequate warnings or instructions. Injuries to children during their infancy or childhood can produce devastating consequences that last a lifetime. Products liability claims may allow parents to recover compensation on behalf of their children for serious injuries arising out of an unduly unsafe product. If your child has been hurt by a defective device, consult the products liability lawyers at Moll Law Group. Our child product defect lawyers represent injured consumers around the nation.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issues and enforces mandatory standards in connection with consumer products, including toys and products used for or by children. Children's products are those that are designed or intended mainly for children who are 12 years old or younger. The primary federal law that regulates child safety and manufacturing standards for baby and child products is the Child Safety Protection Act. It requires that manufacturers use warning labels on certain products and that some choking incidents be reported by those in the chain of distribution.
State laws are also in place to protect children. In Illinois, the Children's Product Safety Act requires manufacturers and retailers to notify consumers if children’s products are found to be unsafe and remove the products from their shelves. Under the Act, a product is considered unsafe if a warning has been issued about its safety, the product does not conform to the applicable federal laws regulating standards, or the product has been recalled. Some child products include beds, button batteries, car seats, cribs, high chairs, magnets, Nap Nanny, playgrounds, SimplyThick, strollers, toys, and walkers.
When bringing a products liability claim in connection with a child's injuries arising out of a consumer product, your child product defect lawyer will need to prove that the item had one of three types of defects. The defect can be a manufacturing defect, a design defect, or a marketing defect, also known as a failure to warn. The plaintiff can rely on different theories to pursue damages, including negligence, strict liability, misrepresentation, and breach of warranty.
Many jurisdictions provide for manufacturers to be held strictly liable for manufacturing or design defects. In that case, you do not need to show that the manufacturer breached a standard of care. Instead, the plaintiff will simply need to prove the defect and causation, and the manufacturer may be held strictly liable for the injury.
In some cases, moreover, a child is hurt while handling a household product. For example, window blinds have come under scrutiny in recent years because many small children are strangled when putting their heads between the loops controlling the height of the blinds. Sometimes the loops fall into a child's crib, or a toddler may get caught in them. Many of these products were recalled, but people in older homes or new parents may not be aware of this. If your child was seriously injured or killed due to window blind strangulation, you may have a design defect or failure to warn claim. In a design defect case, your attorney needs to retain an experienced expert to provide opinions on the design defect, causation, the reasonableness of the design at issue, and whether there was an alternative design.
The injury attorneys at Moll Law Group provide aggressive representation to consumers throughout the U.S. We understand how important your children are to you. Billions of dollars have been recovered in cases in which we were involved. Moll Law Group represents injured consumers and their families in states such as Florida, California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. Call us at 312-462-1700 or use our online form to arrange a free consultation with a child product defect attorney.