Families all around the country are enjoying the spoils of the post-holiday season. For children, that can only mean one thing: gearing up to play with all of their new toys. As wonderful as this time of year is, we’d like to raise a flag of warning to parents with young children. The risk of injury to your child spikes just after the holiday season because of toy product liability. How big of a risk is it? More than 210,000 children require emergency care each year after being injured by a defective toy; some of these injuries are critical or fatal.
Are Toys Safe For My Child?
Ideally, toys are supposed to be quality tested before they are ever put on store shelves, but there are circumstances that cause the toy industry to fall short of that ideal. More specifically:
- Importation of supply
- Increase of holiday demands
For at least the past five years, the bulk of the U.S. toy supply has come from other countries. These suppliers don’t have the same standards — the strictest in the world — that the US does. Add to that the over-saturation of a revenue-rich market during the holiday season, and you have a recipe for toy product liability cases.
There is simply no way to properly check and regulate all of the toy sales that are processed in the rush of the holiday season. Something is bound to slip through the cracks undetected and, when it does, children get hurt.
How Can I Protect My Child From Defective Toys?
Toy manufacturers often hide behind firm, but ultimately vague statements like, “Education and information is the best way to help families select the ‘perfect’ toys for their children (that) is age appropriate and matches the interests of the child.”
It’s statements like this one from the Toy Industry Association that leave grief-stricken parents wondering what their legal recourse is after their child is injured by a supposed “safe, age-appropriate” product. Reports from sources like the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) are making toy product liability cases easier to prove.
Each year, the PIRG releases a report evaluating the product safety of the most popular toys of the holiday season. 2013’s top offenders include:
- Soft Captain America Shield-risk for lead poisoning
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pencil Set-toxicity warning
- Realistic food play sets and Littlest Pet Shop products-pose choking hazards
These toys pose similar threats to Buckyballs (2010) and Banzai Inflatable Pool Slides (2012); both the subject of current class-action lawsuits.
Education and supervision are only part of the preventative equation. The personal injury lawyers at Stockard, Johnston, Brown, Netardus & Doyle, P.C. in Amarillo, Texas understand the life-saving impact of cases that involve children affected by product liability. Contact us today to examine your case.