Storkcraft Crib Recall: Spurred by Suit over Child Death?
As we wrote about previously on Common Law, there was a Storkcraft crib recall announced last week. The partner of the Bell Law Firm is telling press outlets that the Comsumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) decision to recall the cribs stemmed from a lawsuit that the law firm filed on behalf of the Pack family in West Virginia.
The lawyer, Mr. Harry F. Bell, Jr. was quoted by the West Virginia Record as saying, "It has taken private lawsuits and private attorneys like us contacting the CPSC and their folks investigating to bring this action about."
Mr. Bell claims that he shared the information that he gleaned from the child death lawsuit with the CPSC.
It seems that the CPSC was slow to act on knowledge of the child death and other drop side crib related incidents. In fact, The West Virginia Record reports that the CPSC, the Canadian government and Storkcraft were well aware of more than 100 incidents where the drop side railings failed. The CPSC has acknowledged that its response time with regards to these drop side cribs has been slow.
The West Virginia Record quotes CPSC Chairwoman Inez Tenenbaum as saying, "We have just not been acting as quickly as we should have at the Consumer Product Safety Commission on these types of incidents."
According to ABC News, the CPSC is thinking to enact stricter standards. Spokeswoman of the CPSC Patty Davis was quoted by ABC News as saying, "The CPSC staff is looking at beefing up the standards." The lawsuit and recall has caused anger among parents who claim that CPSC has been lax with products that affect the safety of their children.
For more information on this recall and other recalls by the CPSC, please visit our Related Resources links.
Related Resources:
- Storkcraft Crib Recall: Drop-Side Crib Danger Affects 2.1 Million Cribs (Findlaw's Common Law)
- Storkcraft Recalls More Than 500,000 Cribs; Mattress Support Bracket Failures Create Risk of Entrapment and Suffocation (Findlaw's Injured, January 2009)
- CPSC chief concedes it moved slowly on crib safety (AP)
- Injuries from Dangerous Products (provided by Albert L. Buzzetti & Associates, L.L.C.)
- Wrongful Death Overview (provided by Becker & Mishkind Co., L.P.A.)