When children’s products cause serious injuries, parents face overwhelming concerns about their child’s health while also needing to take immediate steps to protect legal rights and prevent other children from suffering similar harm. Defective toys, cribs, car seats, and other children’s products create unique liability because manufacturers have heightened duties to protect vulnerable young consumers who cannot recognize dangers. Understanding what actions to take immediately after product-caused injuries helps you document evidence, report dangerous items to authorities, and pursue compensation for medical expenses and your child’s pain and suffering.
Our friends at Hickey & Turim, S.C. practices help devastated parents navigate both their child’s medical care and the legal process of holding manufacturers accountable. A personal injury lawyer experienced with these cases knows that acting quickly to preserve the defective product, document injuries, and report to regulatory agencies creates the foundation for successful claims while also potentially preventing other children from being hurt by the same dangerous items.
Seek Immediate Medical Attention
Your child’s health is the absolute first priority. Get prompt medical evaluation and treatment for all injuries no matter how minor they initially seem. Some product-caused injuries worsen over time or involve internal damage not immediately apparent.
Emergency room visits create medical records documenting injuries and their causes. Explain to healthcare providers exactly what product caused injuries and how the incident occurred. This information becomes part of medical records that serve as evidence in product liability claims.
Follow all recommended treatment and attend follow-up appointments. Gaps in medical care hurt claims by suggesting injuries weren’t serious or that you didn’t prioritize your child’s health.
Preserve The Defective Product
Do not throw away, return, or alter the product that injured your child. The actual defective item provides essential evidence for proving product defects and causation.
Photograph the product from multiple angles showing the defect, how it failed, and any relevant markings or labels. Include packaging, instructions, and warning labels in photos.
Store the product safely where it cannot be damaged or altered. Preserve it in its post-accident condition. Even damaged or broken products provide valuable evidence about how failures occurred.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, thousands of children are injured by defective products annually, making proper evidence preservation essential for accountability.
Document The Injury Scene
Photograph where the injury occurred, showing the environment and circumstances. If a crib collapsed, photo the room layout. If a toy broke, capture pieces and how they separated.
Note the date, time, and exactly how the incident happened. Write detailed descriptions while memories are fresh. These contemporaneous accounts prove more reliable than recollections months later.
If other children or adults witnessed the incident, get their contact information and ask for written statements about what they saw.
Report To The Consumer Product Safety Commission
File a report with the CPSC about the dangerous product. The agency investigates product safety hazards and can order recalls of defective items.
CPSC reports create official records of product problems. When multiple reports about the same product accumulate, they trigger investigations and potential recalls.
Your report might prevent other children from being injured by the same defective product. Regulatory action protects the public while also creating evidence supporting your individual claim.
Collect Product Information
Gather all information about the product including manufacturer name and contact information, product name and model number, purchase date and location, packaging and instructions, and any warranty or safety information.
This documentation helps identify all parties in the distribution chain who might share liability including manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.
Check For Existing Recalls
Search CPSC databases to determine whether the product has been recalled. Existing recalls provide strong evidence that manufacturers recognized products were defectively dangerous.
If recalls occurred before your child’s injury, this proves manufacturers knew about defects. If recalls came after the injury, they confirm that problems you identified were real and serious.
Notify The Retailer And Manufacturer
Inform the store where you purchased the product about the injury. Provide written notice describing what happened.
Contact the manufacturer directly about the defect and injury. This creates a record that they were notified about the dangerous product.
Save all communications with retailers and manufacturers. Their responses or failures to respond become evidence in litigation.
Common Dangerous Product Categories
Children’s products that frequently cause serious injuries include:
- Toys with small parts creating choking hazards
- Cribs with defective sides or slat spacing
- Car seats with faulty harnesses or anchors
- High chairs that tip or collapse
- Strollers with entrapment hazards
- Toys with toxic materials or lead paint
- Products with sharp edges or points
- Items with long cords creating strangulation risks
Understanding common defect patterns helps identify whether your child’s injury resulted from known product dangers.
Age-Appropriate Use Questions
Manufacturers defend cases by claiming products were used by children younger than recommended ages. While misuse defenses sometimes succeed, manufacturers must anticipate reasonably foreseeable misuse including use by younger siblings.
Products marketed for broad age ranges or that attract younger children through appearance must be safe for foreseeable users, not just labeled age groups.
Warning Label Inadequacies
Many children’s products have inadequate warnings that don’t clearly communicate specific dangers to parents. Generic warnings to supervise children don’t satisfy duties to warn about particular product hazards.
Warnings must be specific, prominent, and clearly explain both the nature of risks and how to avoid them. Buried warnings in fine print or vague cautions don’t meet legal requirements.
Design Alternatives And Safer Options
Product liability claims often focus on whether safer alternative designs existed that would have prevented injuries without significantly reducing product utility.
If similar products from other manufacturers use safer designs or if the same manufacturer later redesigned products to eliminate hazards, this proves safer alternatives were feasible.
Quality Control Failures
Manufacturing defects result from quality control failures during production. Individual units that deviate from intended designs due to production errors create liability even when the design itself is safe.
Evidence of poor quality control, inadequate testing, or manufacturing shortcuts supports claims that companies prioritized cost reduction over child safety.
Chinese Manufacturing And Import Issues
Many children’s products are manufactured overseas, particularly in China. Imported products must still meet U.S. safety standards regardless of where they’re made.
Importers and U.S. distributors share liability for defective imported products. You can pursue claims against American companies even when foreign manufacturers produced the actual items.
Damages For Injured Children
Compensable damages include all medical expenses for treating injuries, future medical care needs for ongoing treatment, pain and suffering your child endured, scarring or disfigurement damages, and parents’ emotional distress from witnessing injuries.
Serious injuries causing permanent disabilities create substantial damage claims reflecting lifetime impacts on children whose injuries affect them for decades.
The Importance Of Expert Analysis
Product defect cases require professionals who can examine products, test them, and explain how defects caused injuries. We hire engineers, product safety professionals, and medical professionals who provide opinions about defects and causation.
Their testimony establishes that products were unreasonably dangerous and that defects directly caused your child’s injuries.
Regulatory Violations
Federal regulations govern children’s product safety. Violations of CPSC standards, failure to conduct required testing, or non-compliance with safety requirements all support liability claims.
Evidence that products didn’t meet regulatory standards proves defects through violation of safety rules designed to protect children.
If your child has been seriously injured by a defective toy or other product, taking immediate action to preserve evidence, seek medical care, and report the dangerous item protects both your legal rights and other children who might be harmed by the same product. Don’t let manufacturers dismiss your concerns or pressure you to accept inadequate compensation for injuries that proper product design, manufacturing, and warnings should have prevented. Children deserve products that are safe for their intended use, and companies that fail to meet this basic obligation must be held accountable for the harm their defective products cause to the most vulnerable consumers who cannot protect themselves from dangers that manufacturers created and should have eliminated before putting products into the hands of children.
Disclaimer: This content should not be construed as legal advice.
