Defective Products: Simplicity Play Yards Recalled

About 25,000 Simplicity Travel Tender play yards are being recalled for product defects, such as fall and entrapment hazards, Consumeraffairs.com reports. According to the report, one or more rails can collapse unexpectedly causing young children to fall or get trapped. Federal regulators say they have heard of at least five reports of one or more rails collapsing. However, no injuries have been reported. The defective play yards, made in China, are portable and were sold with a bassinet, changing table and other mobile features. All the recalled products bear the “Simplicity” logo. The model numbers involved in this recall are 5500DRM, 5500WDS, 5500FEL, 5501FEL, 5502MON, 5520PRO, 5550HAN, 5700MAN, and 5750MIR.

The recalled products were sold at retail outlets nationwide such as Burlington Coat Factory and online at Babiesrus.com, Target.com and Kohls.com from March 2005 through January 2009 for a price of about $100. Consumers are asked to immediately stop using these play yards and return them immediately to the place of purchase for a refund or a replacement product. For more information about this product recall, please refer to this consumer news alert (http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09187.html), issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

Simplicity Inc., which imported and distributed these defective products, is no longer in business. Over the last year, millions of Simplicity cribs and bassinets have been recalled for similar product defects that posed fall and entrapment hazards. Several deaths have been reported nationwide (California included) where children had become trapped and suffocated because of the defective products. These product recalls have come too late and have done nothing for the families that have lost their beloved children because this company could not find a way to regulate the quality of its imported products.

The frightening part of this story is that there are hundreds of defective products out there that have not been recalled. If you or someone you love has been injured by a defective product, please contact an experienced California product liability lawyer, who can give you more information about how to pursue your rights. Where defective Simplicity products were involved, several of the recalls would not have been issued had parents of deceased children not come forward with the truth. These are parents that wanted to make sure other children and their parents don’t suffer the same fate. These parents, who worked to create awareness about these defective products while grieving for their children, must be highly commended. In my eyes, they are true heroes!