North Carolina parents want what is best for their children, which is ensuring their health and safety. With so many products on the market geared towards children, parents are faced with the challenge of discerning what is helpful and best for their children and what is not needed or could be potentially dangerous. Even when a product appears to be safe and useful, defects could occur, making it dangerous for children consumers. Although a product may be essentially safe, when a product does not have proper warnings or age recommendations, this could result in serious harm or even the death of a child.
Defective children toys
Parents never expect that their child is playing with a toy that could cause them harm; however, just like consumer goods used by adults can suffer defects, so can goods created for children. In fact, injuries to children due to toys happen more often than any parent would want to realize. Roughly every three minutes, a child in the U.S. is treated for a toy-related injury in the emergency department.
What’s even more concerning is that the most dangerous and defective toys are not recalled and taken off the market until it is too late. Base don current data, there were around 226,100 toy-related injuries and 17 toy-related deaths in 2018 among children between infancy and 15 years of age.
Harmful toys
When toys are not properly marketed to the correct age group or include warnings about potential hazards for children, this could constitute a dangerous toy. There are 11 components to consider when assessing whether a toy is dangerous.
The first is toys that are marketed online but do not contain any warnings, instructions or age recommendations. Toys targeted for children under the age of 8 and are battery operated is the next component. The third component is toys that contain fur or hair, such as dolls and stuffed animals, as they could pose risks to young children if they inhale it or eat it.
Other components include toys with a string longer than six inches, realistic toy weapons or projectile toys, toys meant to be strung across cribs or playpens, bonus toys that come with food, clothing, books and videos that contain to warnings, instructions or age recommendations, toys made of flammable or toxic material, toys that require electricity to function, toys that contain small parts that could be inhaled or swallowed and long-handled toys, as young children could place these in their mouths and choke.
These and other components could give rise to product recalls. In 2018, there were 52 children’s products recalled. These represented more than 2 million individual units deemed defective in some way or form.
Those harmed by a defective product may have options. A product liability action could help the injured party hold the liable party responsible for the harm caused by the defective product. Additionally, this civil action could help with the recovery of compensation for losses suffered,