By Cameron Stephenson
December 7th, 2012 12:00pm
On Wednesday, December 5,2012, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) filed an administrative complaint against Baby Matters, LLC for failing to warn consumers about the risks associated with its products. Specifically, the manufacturer’s infant recliners, the Nap Nanny Generation One and Two and Chill models, have been linked to the deaths of at least five infants, not to mention the more than 70 additional complaints of infants either falling out of the products or being caught in the three-point safety harness systems.
Despite limited initial cooperation in the investigation by Baby Matters, LLC, the CPSC reports that it was forced to file suit when the company failed to undertake and implement an adequate voluntary recall plan that would address the “entrapment, suffocation, and fall hazards” associated with the products. In the complaint, the CPSC alleges that the products contain significant defects in design, warning, and instruction, such that the products “pose a substantial risk of death or injury to infants.”
The CPSC reports that between 2009 and early 2012, approximately 5,000 Nap Nanny Generation One and 50,000 Generation Two models were sold. Since January of 2011, approximately 100,000 Chill models were sold. Sadly, this results in over 150,000 infants at risk for serious injury or death. And the company refused to participate in a voluntary recall? Really?
It is no wonder why the American public’s faith in Corporate America, including Big Pharma, continues to flounder. When companies become aware that their products are killing people, and choose to continue business as usual rather than implement what most would consider to be an ethically and morally required voluntary recall of its dangerous products, what other choice is the American public given? This is just another sad example of the “profits over people” mentality that is defining Corporate America.
Cameron Stephenson is a lawyer with the Levin, Papantonio law firm in Pensacola, Florida, and handles medical malpractice and other wrongful death cases. He has devoted his legal practice to fighting for the rights of Florida’s injured patients.
