Two infant deaths have been reported in connection with the use of the loungers made by Leachco, the CPSC said in a safety warning last month. The lawsuit came in the wake of a time when the agency “has not used all of the tools available to it when dealing with product safety enforcement matters,” CPSC Commissioner Peter Feldman said in a Wednesday statement. That trend has been going on “for too long,” the commissioner said.
“Consumers deserve transparency about known product hazards. Consumers also deserve products that are safe,” Feldman said. “Companies deserve an opportunity to defend themselves in court.”
A Leachco spokesperson told Newsweek the company is standing by the statement it released after the CPSC’s initial safety warning last month. At the time, Leachco said in part that the safety agency’s “claims are wrong” and said it had support from First Candle, an organization that promotes safe sleep practices for babies, and the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA). First Candle and the JPMA both released statements in support of Leachco last month.
The CPSC issued its safety warning on January 20 in response to two infant deaths—one in January 2018 and the other in December 2015—reported in connection with the use of Leachco’s “Podster” loungers. The agency said each infant suffocated after they were placed inside a Leachco lounger and “due to a change in position, their noses and mouths were obstructed by the Podster or another object.”
The safety agency said it was issuing the warning discouraging consumers from using the products because Leachco was “refusing” to voluntarily recall the loungers. The products covered by the agency’s safety warning were Leachco’s Podster, Podster Plush, Bummzie and Podster Playtime. The CPSC estimated about 180,000 of the “Podsters” were sold in total.
Leachco disputed the CPSC’s safety warning, saying its infant loungers are meant for supervised use and are safe when used as intended.
“Leachco disagrees with the CPSC’s description of those events, and the CPSC investigated those deaths at the time that they occurred,” a Leachco spokesperson told Newsweek at the time.
“The Podster is not a sleep product,” Leachco said in a separate statement responding to the CPSC’s safety warning. The company went on to say the CPSC was “wrongly telling consumers to stop using the Podster altogether instead of explaining that no lounger should be used in a crib or bed and no lounger is safe for unsupervised sleep.”
Following Leachco’s response to the CPSC warning, the agency told Newsweek that “under federal law, consumers’ use is considered in deciding whether a product is defective,” a point the agency reiterated Wednesday while announcing its lawsuit against Leachco.
The CPSC said its complaint provided a review of the risks the products can pose to infants and noted that the loungers do provide consumers with warnings about their proper use. Even so, “the complaint states it is foreseeable caregivers will use the infant lounger for infant sleep and without supervision, and the product is defective,” the CPSC said.
The CPSC said its latest move is aimed to require Leachco to alert every consumer who has purchased one of the loungers mentioned in the safety warning about the risks involved in the product’s use and to offer refunds.
CPSC Chair Alex Hoehn-Saric said in the agency’s Wednesday news release that it “will not turn a blind eye on products that put them at unnecessary risk, and can lead to parents’ worst nightmare.”
“Filing complaints like this one is a last resort when a manufacturer fails to respond to the type of safety concerns raised in this case, yet in the interest of protecting consumers we were left with no other options,” Hoehn-Saric said.
Updated 02/16/2022,11:34 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with a new photo.
Updated 02/10/2022, 3:48 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with a comment from a Leachco spokesperson.
