Death by Imports Continues. Baby Bassinet is Latest Killer.
I’ve written a great deal about dangerous products that have resulted in numerous injuries and deaths. It’s no surprise that most of these products were imported from foreign countries such as China and India, where manufacturing is cheap, but safety standards are lax. Examples include Chinese food products, poisonous toothpaste, children’s pajamas, dolls painted with lead contaminated paint, toxic chemicals in plastic toys, and the list goes on and on and on. Now Wal-Mart is facing a lawsuit for selling a defective bassinet that allegedly strangled and killed a 6-month-year-old baby. So where was this bassinet assembled? No surprise here - China. This is the SECOND time a baby has died from this very same bassinet. The first death occurred in September, 2007. Yet despite this horrific incident, the bassinet remained on the market.
When will greedy American companies get a clue that selling cheaper imported products may be profitable in the short-run, but far more costly in the long-run due to negative publicity and lawsuits? And when will they start caring about their customers and stop hurting them? But here’s the most important question of all: when will the U.S. government finally crack down on product safety, and demand stricter standards for imports? Your guess is as good as mine.
See the full article below that ran in the Northwest Arkansas Morning News on October 28, 2009:
Baby's Death Leads To Lawsuit Against Wal-Mart
Last updated Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:24 PM CDT in News
By Richard Dean Prudenti
THE MORNING NEWSBENTONVILLE – A lawsuit filed Wednesday claims Wal-Mart is liable for selling what is believed to be a defective bassinet that allegedly killed a 6-month-old child last year.
Kennedy Renee Jones died Aug. 21, 2008, allegedly while in a bassinet manufactured by Simplicity Inc. of Reading, Pa. The family, who were residents of Johnson County, Kan., at the time of the incident, purchased the bassinet for about $98 at a Walmart in Shawnee, Kan., according to the receipt included as an exhibit in the lawsuit.
Jones died of strangulation, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiff demands a jury trial and requests punitive damages.
The baby was placed in the bassinet to go to sleep, and subsequently was found with her neck trapped between the bars of the bassinet on the side where it opens, the lawsuit states.
The bassinet was defective and "unreasonably dangerous" because the bars on the side that opens were too far apart — large enough for an infant to become trapped between the bars and the floor of the bassinet with a pad on it, the suit states.
The suit claims Wal-Mart is liable vicariously for the actions of its agents in China who assembled the product.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Daphne Moore said the company was not aware of the lawsuit, therefore she could not respond immediately with a comment. She referred to a statement Walmart made at the time of the recall.
"Customer safety is a top priority at Wal-Mart," the statement reads. "We are working with the supplier and (Consumer Product Safety Commission) and are directing store managers to remove from store shelves product."
The company also removed the product from sale on its Web site, according to the news release from Aug. 27, 2008.
Walmart issued a recall after the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued an imminent hazard warning on the product.
The lawsuit alleges Walmart and Simplicity knew about the bassinet's defect because the product caused the death of another infant in September 2007 in Jane, Mo. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in its news release, reported a 4-month-old girl from Noel, Mo., became entrapped in the metal bars of the bassinet and died.
"Despite this knowledge, (the companies) failed to remove the product from the market," the lawsuit states.
©2009 Angel Reyes
www.ReyesLaw.com
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Nice, informative blog, many useful information can be good for parents, who plan to get one of the bassinets.