Articles Posted in Dangerous Products

Those ugly and ubiquitous Crocs shoes — and the cheaper knockoffs — have been involved in an international wave of serious injuries to the feet of young children on escalators. At first I was skeptical when I began hearing last year of kids’ toes being mangled on escalators at the Atlanta airport. However, this article…

Here’s a product defect you don’t see every day. Wal-Mart has been selling a baby doll that bears the Fisher-Price logo, manufactured in China, that would teach your child to say “Islam in the Light.”   Remember when Sam Walton was alive and Wal-Mart advertised its loyalty to products made in the USA?  I suspect Sam…

In my law practice in Atlanta, Georgia, we get inquiries about hospital, nursing home or home health care patients who die or suffer serious injuries due to being entrapped in a gap between the mattress and guard rail in a hospital bed. If you have ever spent night after night in a hospital room keeping…

This year, with foreclosures and unemployment rates soaring, more people will focus on discount prices when buying boys for their children and grandchildren. The harbinger of this season may have been when a Wal-Mart employee was trampled by the crowd entering a store at 5 AM on the day after Thanksgiving.  Others in the depths…

When Ford acquired Volvo a few years ago, I thought it was quite a mismatch of corporate cultures. Volvo had a reputation for building the world’s safest cars.  Ford, on the other hand, sometimes seemed only slightly ahead of Yugo in that regard.  I have owned Volvos for 20 years.  I bought the first one,…

Tires manufactured in China and sold in the U.S. under brand names Westlake, Compass, Telluride and YKS have been ordered recalled due to life threatening defects.  My bet is that no one will ever be able to hold anyone financially responsible, and certainly not in Georgia. The problem is compounded by the inability to enforce…

The U. S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a case concerning the scope of federal regulations preempting higher standards under state health, safety and tort laws. Preemption is the principle that a federal law can supersede or supplant any inconsistent state law or regulation. When preemption occurs, state law on a given subject is…

A rash of recent news stories about dangerously defective products from China points to the need to amend a tort reform law that was passed in Georgia twenty years ago. In 1987, long before so much manufacturing was outsourced to China, the Georgia General Assembly passed OCGA 51-1-11.1, which provides: (a) As used in this…

A leading industry in Northwest Georgia is the manufacture of tufted carpet. A vital element of the local economy of Dalton, Calhoun and surrounding communities, the carpet industry provides a good living for a substantial portion of the local population as well as thousands of hard-working immigrants. Unfortunately, however, we have seen that the companies…

A coalition of lawyers who have sued tobacco companies says it is close to filing a class-action lawsuit against soft-drink makers for selling sugared sodas in schools. Leading the litigation effort is Richard A. Daynard, an associate dean at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, who is also president of the Tobacco Control Resource…