Michigan Children’s Product Liability — Manufacturers Must be Held Accountable for Injuries

Few things are as frightening as the thought of a toddler suffering brain injury because of a poorly designed swing set or a baby suffocating in crib or carrier of equally poor design. Unfortunately, the product liability attorneys at Sachs Waldman, P.C. can attest that the reality that these things do occur. They occur most often because the designer or manufacturer didn’t think things through or chose to disregard safety regulations to save a few bucks. In these instances, the companies behind dangerous products need to be held accountable.

The good news is that, according to a recent report from the Kids in Danger organization, recalls of children’s products were 24% lower in 2011 than 2010, indicating that more is being done to keep dangerous products from getting to store shelves — hopefully. Advocating tighter safety rules for manufacturers of children’s products, Kids in Danger believes the significant decrease in recalls is due to continued enforcement of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

However, while the CPSIA may be helping, it’s not preventing dangerous product from getting into children’s hands altogether. In fact, the same report from Kids in Danger shows that injuries and deaths prior to recall of products in 2011 was down only marginally from the previous year. The report also reveals that the CPSIA isn’t convincing manufacturers to be safer as fines levied by the Consumer Product Safety Commission for violations of safety regulations increased a whopping 44% from 2010 to 2011. Obviously, enforcement agents are just getting better at catching companies who are being irresponsible.

Product Liability Lawsuits Force Manufacturers to Take Notice

Considering that the amount of safety violation fines issued by the Safety Commission in relation to children’s products totaled only $3.9 million, it seems obvious that safety regulations are ineffective at motivating manufacturers to be more safety conscious. While over 300 injuries and deaths occurred prior to children’s product recalls in 2011, it takes only a handful of product liability lawsuits, with punitive damages, to total the amount of fines issued by the Safety Commission.

Product liability lawsuits serve three main functions when a child is injured or killed by an unsafe product:

1.     Compensation for all medical expenses and costs associated with the injury, including future expenses

2.     Compensation for the pain and suffering experienced by the child and compensation for any quality-of-life loss he or she may experience in the future — or compensation for loss of a loved one in a case of wrongful death.

3.     Punish the company or companies behind the product for failure to ensure safe design of their product and/or ignoring safety regulations and, hopefully, motivate them to be more responsible in the future

In fact, product liability lawsuits are the only way to penalize a corporation for irresponsible behavior because corporations cannot be charged with criminal conduct in the United States. Since law enforcement can’t throw a manufacturing company in prison when its products injure or kill someone, victims and families of victims must stand up hold them accountable via product liability lawsuits.

Get help with a product liability case involving your child

If your child was injured or killed through proper use of a product intended for children, the Michigan product liability attorneys at Sachs Waldman, P.C., can help you take action against the companies responsible. You may be entitled to compensation for medical expenses, pain and suffering, wrongful death and/or punitive damages. Call our Detroit product liability attorneys toll free at 1-800-638-6722 to schedule a free consultation.