The Cochran Firm Legal Blog

This week, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced the recall of about 635,000 cribs that have unsafe drop sides. They are sold by many stores, Wal-Mart, Sears, and Kmart among them. They were made by Dorel Asia, based in Barbados, although the manufacturing was done in China and Vietnam. They were selling for anywhere between $120 and $700.

The company received 67 reports of malfunction with ten involving scratching or bruising for the infants and six where babies became trapped between the drop side and the mattress. About half of them involved broken slats on the drop-side of the crib. The drop-side hardware has a tendency to break.

Circumstances of the Infant Fatality

Yesterday, January 19, an infant death was reported that had occurred in a Dorel Asia crib. According to Dorel Asia’s clarifying statement issued yesterday, when an investigator looked into this fatality, he found that the crib had earlier been used for an older child who had broken it. The parents had repaired it with duct tape and then used it for their six-month-old baby. The duct-taped area came apart, somehow trapping the baby, who was strangled.

The parents had also wrapped their baby in a thick afghan rug, something that Dorel Asia’s instructions warn against, as thick bedding can hamper a baby’s movement so that suffocation may occur. Both parents were arrested for child endangerment with death. The father also received several drug charges.

Free Repair Kit

Dorel Asia is offering a free repair kit to fix the drop-side hardware. If you have one of these cribs, you can call 1-866-762-2304 to obtain a kit and the CPSC recall announcement lists all the models involved in this recall. Meanwhile, do not use the crib.

Please contact our law office if you have been injured by any type of defective product and wonder if you might have legal recourse. We will be happy to schedule a free case review for you with one of our defective product attorneys. We have offices across the nation for your convenience.

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